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"you ask why J wanted to ^udy medicine.
Jn the naivBe of youth J thought it would
he exciting and challenging. It has turned
out to he all of that and more, beyond
all my youthful dreams. . .

B7IRN71RD TILUMNTIE in !Medicine->

ydl <977

Nora Lourie Percival ’36, editor
Daniel Robert Neal, editorial assistant

Editorial Board

Betty Binns ’49
Joyce Engelson Keifetz ’50
Shari Gruhn Lewis ’62
Deborah Reich ’73
Teresa Herring Weeks ’48
Margaret Zweig ’75

Associate Alumnae

Helen Pond McIntyre ’48, president
Sheila Gordon ’63, secretary

Alumnae Trustees

Martha Bennett Hey de ’41
Helen Pond McIntyre ’48
Madeline Russell Robinton ’29
Charlotte Hanley Scott ’47

Chairpersons, Standing Committees

Eileen Weiss ’57, advisory vocational

Barbara Glaser Sahlman ’53, Barnard Fund

Naomi F. Levin ’71, budget

Linda Benjamin Hirschson ’62, bylaws

Cecile Singer ’50, classes

Sally Salinger Lindsay ’50, clubs

To be appointed, council

Madeleine Hooke Rice ’25, fellowship

Nanette Hodgman Hayes ’40, nominating

Renee Becker Swartz ’55, reunion

Stephani Cook ’66, student affairs

Directors at Large

Lizabeth Moody Buchmann ’56
Louise Heublein McCagg ’59
Florence Sadoff Pearlman ’50

Publications Committee

Marjorie Housepian Dobkin ’44, chairperson

Jean Vandervoort Cullen ’44

Ruth Richards Eisenstein ’28

Diana Chang Herrmann ’48

Sara J. Piovia ’66

Catherine A. Sabino ’73

Janice Farrar Thaddeus ’55

Alumnae Office

Dena Rosenthal Warshaw ’52, director of
alumnae affairs

Irma Socci Moore ’50, associate director
Telephone 280-2005-6

BARNARD ALUMNAE, FALL 1977
Vol. LXVH, No. 1

Published fall, winter, spring and summer.
Copyright 1977 by the Associate Alumnae of
Barnard College, Milbank Hall, New York,

N. Y. 10027.

Member of CASE.

Second class postage paid at New York, New
York and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster: Send form 3579 to Alumnae
Office, Barnard College, 606 West 120th
Street, New York, N. Y. 10027.

Editor's Notes

With this issue my four-year editorship comes to a
close, on what I hope will be a high note: this special
issue on medical alumnae. In these years my sustained
effort has been to present alumnae to each other
whenever and however possible— for I believe strongly
that in telling the story of Barnard’s daughters we tell
the story of the College in its truest sense. And that
in coming closer to each other, we alumnae maintain
our ties with the College that had so large a part in
shaping us.

These four years, together with the preceding four,
spent as Director of Alumnae Affairs, have been
rewarding ones for me, for they have brought me
many treasured friendships and the special pleasure of
being part of the school I have loved for 45 years.
There have often been difficult times, frustrating
times, times of trying to do more with less resources;
there have certainly been failures to match the
successes. But I hope I leave to my successor,
Suzanne Wiedel Pace ’66, a magazine that has grown
in its role of being what its name advertises: the voice
of Barnard alumnae.

-Nora Lourie Percival

CREDITS

The cover quotation is from a letter by Doris Milman
Kreeger ’38 in her Vita on page 29. Most of the draw-
ings in this issue are the work of Margaret Zweig ’75.
The photo of the pre-med conference on page 17 was
taken 'oy Maxine Weissman. Pictures on pages 11 and 13
are from the Barnard Archives; those on pages 9 and 12
are reprinted from the Alumnae Magazine. We are in-
debted to P & S for the photos on pages 19, 32 and 37.

y A Medical Issue ?

For nearly a year now, our editorial efforts have
been bent on this special issue, concerned with the
women who for nearly eighty years have been going
from Barnard into the world of medicine— a most
ambitious project, we soon discovered!

It all started with a reference to a Public Health
report for the 1950’s, which stated that Barnard
headed the list of all women’s colleges in the number
of MB’s earned by its graduates in that decade (29
per thousand graduates). As the numbers going into
medical schools have been steadily rising since then
(see chart on page 15), this remarkable record has
undoubtedly been maintained— and probably
bettered.

It seemed important to explore the careers and
characters of these dedicated women. How have they
resolved the thorny questions of coordinating the
demands of medicine, family, personality? How have
they dealt with the special problems of being both
women and doctors— and has their sex made the
struggle to succeed a harder one? Or has the reverse
been true? And how have the problems and opportu-
nities changed over the years?

We wanted to know too what role Barnard had
played in shaping their lives, both professional and
personal— and if its role is still a positive and incisive
one, as it certainly was for many early alumnae doc-
tors. And what of tomorrow’s physicians? Will they
be cast in the same indomitable mold as those who
over the years broke new ground for women in so
many areas of medicine?

This chronicle of our medical alumnae is so re-
markable—and so vast— that we have been all but
overwhelmed by our material. The table of contents
on page 2 indicates the broad range of the ways in
which we have sought to present it. There are so
many notable stories, that despite our best efforts we
know we are bound to have left out some important
ones. Already— as the issue is taking final shape— some
glaring omissions have surfaced:

Dr. Vera Joseph Peterson ’32, recently retired as
Director of the Smith College Health Service, was the
first Black woman admitted to P & S; she and her
physician husband spent many years with the World
Health Service abroad.

Dr. Helen Ranney ’41 is a leading hematologist

who received the Martin Luther King award for her
work on sickle cell anemia. In the News reported in
1973 on her appointment as chairperson of the de-
partment of medicine at the San Diego School of
Medicine of the University of California.

Mention must certainly be made of the late Dr.
Ada Chree Reid ’17, one of our most distinguished
early physicians. A founder (and long president) of
the American Women’s Hospital Service, and a presi-
dent of the Medical Women’s International Associa-
tion, Dr. Reid received the first Lovejoy Award for
her service to women doctors around the world, and
the first Elizabeth Blackwell Award of the AMWA for
her work on early detection of tuberculosis.

There are surely many others who deserve a place
in these pages. We hope they will understand that the
fault lies in the severe limitations of space and staff,
and that the stories we tell represent all the others we
could not include. But we have tried hard to cover all
the facets of our medical story— historical, biograph-
ical, factual and philosophical. We hope that our
readers will fill in the gaps in the chronicle and that
significant added data can be published in the Letters
columns of future issues.

Many, many people have helped to make this issue
what we hope will be a significant contribution to
Barnard’s history. Our thanks to them all are ex-
pressed in the Coordinator’s Journal on page 47. But
acknowledgement must also be made of the extra-
ordinary commitment of the two who shared the
brunt of the effort, and without whose unfailing help
this issue literally could not have been produced— the
other two members of what one called “the Triumvi-
rate” and the other called “the team”— Deborah
Reich and Daniel Neal, collaborators and friends.

All of us hope that these efforts have produced a
magazine that will match in significance the stories
we have collected. We have given over a major share
of space to these stories of many lives (which appear
under the heading Vitae)— hnei or detailed, brilliant
or difficult, just beginning or nearly done, wherever
possible in their own words— because we feel that in
them lies the essence of our subject— Barnard’s
alumnae doctors.

-THE EDITOR

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 1

Barnard A lumnae

Table of Contents

WHY A MEDICAL ISSUE? 1

PORTRAIT OF THE ALUMNAE DOCTOR: A Report on the Medical

Questionnaires by Margaret Zweig ’75 and Deborah Reich ’73 3

HISTORY OF AN EARLY CAMPAIGN: Battering Down Doors at P & S

by Joan Houston McCulloch ’50 9

GULIELMA ALSOP ’03: Our First College Physician by Nora Lourie Percival ’36 II
PRE-MED AT BARNARD

1. The Early Years by Emma Dietz Stecher ’25 13

IT Today’s Pre-Professional Support Services by Esther Rowland 16

TOMORROW’S ALUMNAE DOCTORS by Nora Lourie Percival ’36 18

FACING THE REALITIES OF MEDICINE by Mary Ann LoFrumento ’77 20

CREATING A PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY by Roberta Sackin Batt ’62 22

VITAE - 1 24

WOMEN IN MEDICAL ACADEMIA: A Research and Action Model in

Educational Equity by Marlys Hearst Witte ’55 and Frederica Hearst 30

VITAE - II 33

THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL PSYCHIATRIST PERSON by Ann Ruth Turkel ’47 39

VITAE - III 40

THE MILBANK CHAIR: New Horizons in Health Sciences

by Suzanne Wiedel Pace ’66 46

COORDINATOR’S JOURNAL: Midwifing a Special Issue on Medicine 47

LETTERS 48

EVENTS IN THE ARTS 48

COME OUT AND ROOT FOR BARNARD by Marian Linder Rosenwasser 50

SCHEDULE OF INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC EVENTS 50

IN MEMO RI AM 51

Lucy Morgenthau Heineman ’15
Edith Willmann Emerson ’19

OBITUARIES 52

CLASS NEWS 52

I^rtrait Of Tke Alumnae Doctor

A Report On Tke Med ical Questionnaires

by Margaret Zweig ’75
and Deborah Reich ’73

For this special issue on Barnard’s
alumnae physicians we set out to discover
all we could about a major segment of the
graduate community. A notice of our in-
tention in the Winter 1977 issue pro-
duced about fifty letters from alumnae
doctors (or their friends, family, or class
correspondents). Subsequently, we sent a
questionnaire to about 600 alumnae MD ’s
and received 240 responses (some from
women who had earlier sent us letters).
Overall, we heard from nearly 300 of the
approximately 600 living alumnae known
to have attended medical school and
listed in the alumnae roster.

In planning the issue, we wanted to
present both hard (statistical) and soft
(narrative) data in an attempt to provide
the fullest possible portrait of the greatest
possible number of Barnard MB’s. To
that end, the survey questionnaire in-
cluded both simple, straightforward ques-
tions and more complex inquiries that
required several sentences or paragraphs
in response.

We wanted to know about the major
areas of interest in the lives of these wo-
men: how and why they chose to become
doctors; what they studied at Barnard,
and how they felt about their undergrad-
uate experiences; which medical schools
they attended and how they fared; the
nature of their practices and of the com-
munities they serve; whether they have
combined medicine with marriage andjor
motherhood and, if so, what they had to
say about it; and whether— all things con-
sidered—they ’d do it all over again the
same way if they had the choice.

The letters, articles, biographies, and
autobiographies which appear in this is-
sue portray a representative cross-section
of the kinds of responses we received to
the more open-ended questions in this
survey. Highlights of what we learned
from the responses to the closed-
ended questions are presented in this
report. —D. R.

“When I grow up . .

What makes a person decide to be-
come a doctor? And what makes a wo-
man, in particular, decide to become a
doctor? On the premise that medicine has
been largely a male field in our society,
and that an early medical role model
might have been particularly crucial for
our alumnae MB’s, we asked about
physicians in the family. Sixty-five per
cent reported that they had one or more;
and of these, many confirmed our hypo-
thesis that the physician-relative had been
an important influence in their decision
to pursue a medical career.

Role models do not a career decision
make, of course; and a variety of other
influencing factors were reported. For
some it was a memorable childhood ex-
perience: a severe illness treated by an
MD-mother, perhaps, or a youngster’s
affection for the family doctor. For
many, it was a compelling desire to help
people, together with a natural aptitude
for the sciences. But most often, the
presence of a doctor in the family was
cited as an important factor— even when
the relationship was fairly distant. And
it was not uncommon for a respondent
to have virtually her entire family in
medicine, starting with a grandfather or
even a great-grandfather and extending
onward to her own offspring.

The only decade in which fewer them
half the respondents reported having at
least one relative who was a physician,
was the 1920’s. The percentage was high-
est in the thirties, with more than three-
quarters having a doctor in the family;
and the figure fluctuated between 58%
and 68% for each of the ensuing decades.

For those whose decision was not
firmed during childhood, the important
influence sometimes appeared in college
in the person of a professor, an advisor,
or a classmate. Many who were under-
graduates during Millicent McIntosh’s
tenure as president of the College cited
her influence as an important factor in
their choice of career. Herself the wife of
a physician. President McIntosh provided

a ready model of the successful profes-
sional and family woman who excelled in
all spheres. Those who as students tried
to emulate her recall a sense of inspira-
tion mixed with frustration, and some-
times even resentment, inherent in the
task of trying to live up to the kind of
“superwoman” image the president
projected.

Majoring in pre-med,
minoring in life

We asked our alumnae doctors about
their undergraduate years and, in particu-
lar, their thoughts about the best choice
of a major for a woman who plans to at-
tend medical school. The overwhelming
majority (87%) of all respondents had
chosen a major in one or some combina-
tion of the sciences (anthropology, biol-
ogy, botany, chemistry, mathematics,
physics, psychology, zoology, or other
“pre-med” program). Most of the rest
(12%) were scattered among the humani-
ties (including English, foreign or classical
languages, history, philosophy, and soci-
ology); and a few hardy souls (1%) chose
a double or combined major incorporat-
ing one field in the sciences and one in
the humanities.

Most of the respondents, looking back,
reported satisfaction with their choice
and agreed they’d take about the same
courses if they had their undergraduate
years to do over again. Yet many— repre-
senting every decade reporting— felt that
the pre-med student who is totally ab-
sorbed in the sciences misses out on many
enriching cultural opportunities, both on
campus and in New York City generally.

Science majors predominated in the
early years, although in the twenties
about a quarter of the respondents re-
ported either a humanities or a combined
science and humanities major. The per-
centage of non-science majors fell to less
than 10% during the next thirty years,
but picked up again in the sixties (16%)
and seventies (33%)— in spite of the fact
that, as one recent alumna complained,
pre-med humanities majors were some-

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 3

HOW RESPONDENTS THOUGHT THAT BEING A WOMAN
HAD AFEECTED THEM IN THEIR CAREERS

No effect
(%)

Hindered

(%)

Helped

(%)

Mixed

(%)

In medical school

As an intern

As a resident

In teaching

In research

In private practice

♦Respondents were asked to check either “no effect,” “hindered,” or “helped.” Those who
checked more than one category, or who wrote in a qualified answer, were scored as “mixed.”

times treated as “second-class citizens”
by their science professors. It is interest-
ing to speculate (which is all we can really
do) about the possible reasons for this
renewed trend toward the humanities, in
an era of intensifying competition among
women for medical school acceptances.
Perhaps we are seeing a reflection of a
renewed realization among today’s young
people that health care, in the best of all
possible worlds, concerns itself with the
whole person and not just his/her plumb-
ing; and that the physician, as well as the
patient, has a soul in need of nourish-
ment. (This point of view is articulated
with concise elegance in Muriel Chevious
Kowlessar ’47’s memoirs of medical
school, quoted on page 28 of this issue.)

After Barnard

During the nearly eight decades that
Barnard has been sending its graduates on
to train as doctors in the United States
and abroad, the medical school that has
graduated the largest number of respond-
ing alumnae is New York University’s.
Since it admitted its first Barnard alumna
in the 1920’s, NYU has trained a total of
42 of our doctors. Columbia’s own Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons (which
first admitted women in 1917— see story
on page 9) is next, with 33; then come
Cornell and SUNY-Downstate, with 17
each; followed by New York Medical
College (15); the Women’s Medical Col-
lege of Pennsylvania (14)*; Harvard (12);
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of
Yeshiva University (11); and Yale (5). In
all, 50 medical schools are represented in
the responses to the survey.

Over the years, alumnae have attended
many of the better-known medical
schools both in this country and overseas,
such as: Stanford, in the west; Johns
Hopkins, in the east; Dartmouth, in New
England; and Howard University, in the
south; as well as the universities of Lau-
sanne, Madrid, McGill (Montreal), Mel-
bourne, Paris, Tel Aviv, and Vienna.

Not surprisingly, 71% of the respond-
ents distinguished themselves in medical
school, ranking in the top third of their
classes; and another 25% ranked in the
middle third. A mere 4% of respondents

* The Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania
began accepting men during the 1960’s and
changed its name to The Medical College of
Pennsylvania.

(fewer than ten women) acknowledged
placing in the lowest third of their class,
suggesting either that Barnard women are
well prepared for medical school and
study hard, or that those who answered
our questionnaire were particularly suc-
cessful as medical students, or— most
probably— a combination of both.

One of the things we were curious
about was how our alumnae physicians
thought their gender had affected their
careers in medicine at each step of the
way. A majority of respondents felt that
being a woman had no effect on their
pursuit of and their success in medicine—
whether they’d graduated in 1903 or
1973. In many cases, however, femaleness
was acknowledged as a primary factor in
either the furtherance or the hindrance of
their goals. The extent to which this was
a factor seems to have depended heavily
on changing social attitudes.

As a group, 5 7% felt that being a wo-
man had had no effect during their years
in medical school, while 24% thought it
had hindered them, and 14% said it had
helped. Another 4% said that being a wo-
man had both advantages and disadvan-
tages.*

In the first decade of the century, a
woman in any college was unusual. Since
the pressures of advanced academia were
considered more than any woman could

* Not all respondents answered all questions.
Percentages are based on the total number of
responses to a question, not on the total num-
ber of respondents to the survey (240).

sustain, it was an even greater rarity to
find a woman in medical school, and rarer
still for her to find acceptance there. One
alumna who attended medical school at
that time reported, not surprisingly, that
being a woman was a decided disadvan-
tage. Struggling— as any student, male or
female, had to— to meet the rigorous
scholastic standards, she faced the addi-
tional burden of having to overcome
strong prejudices.

By the twenties, however, the tide had
apparently shifted in favor of women. All
respondents from that era reported that
being a woman either had no effect on
their medical school experience or, in
some cases, actually helped their advance-
ment. In the thirties, however, one-third
again felt that they were hindered in med-
ical school because of their sex, though
there is a sprinkling as well of the oppo-
site sentiment.

From the forties onward, trends are
more difficult to pinpoint and the medic-
al school experience seems to have varied
greatly from one person to another rather
than according to social attitudes com-
mon to all. This is especially true of the
seventies when, as women doctors have
steadily grown in number and acceptance,
their reactions to medical school seem to
be very much a mixed bag of personal
perceptions.

Looking back on their internships and
residencies, a somewhat higher percentage
of respondents felt that their sex was
irrelevant, perhaps reflecting their increas-

ing ability to function effectively as pro-
fessionals in a working environment
among colleagues of both sexes. For the
forties women, for example, there was
unanimous agreement that being a wo-
man had no effect on their experiences as
interns. Of all respondents, 69% said their
gender had had no effect during their
internship and 65% said it had had no
effect during their tenure as residents.
Twenty-one per cent found their sex a
hindrance as interns, and about the same
number (20%) found it a hindrance as
residents. Eight per cent and 12% found
being a woman helpful during internship
and residency respectively; and two per
cent and three per cent respectively said
the effects were mixed.

Choosing a Specialty

For any doctor, the choice of a spe-
cialty involves a multitude of considera-
tions: individual preference, skills, and
abilities; lifestyle aspirations; a range of
personal and social influences; and, of
course, the accidents of fate which pro-
vide varying opportunities for each indi-
vidual. For women physicians, the gov-
erning circumstances can be still more
complex, particularly for those women
who want to combine a career in medi-
cine with marriage and/or motherhood
(about which more later).

Psychiatry and psychoanalysis, pedi-
atrics, and general practice (or family
medicine, or internal medicine) were the
three highest-ranking areas of specializa-
tion among respondents in every decade
from 1920 on— although not necessarily
in that order. Pediatrics and general prac-
tice were neck and neck for alumnae of
the twenties (at 20%); among thirties
grads, general practice pulled ahead (with
32%, as compared to 18% for pediatrics
and 15% for psychiatry /psychoanalysis).
In the forties group, pediatricians led
with 30%, trailed by general practitioners
and psychiatrists/psychoanalysts at 18%
apiece. For fifties women, there were
more psychiatrists (51%) among respond-
ents than there were pediatricians (15%)
and general practitioners (9%) combined.
And psychiatry led again during the six-
ties, though not by much (psychiatry/
psychoanalysis, 19%; pediatrics, 18%;
general practice, 13%). So far during the
seventies, general practitioners are leading
(32%), with 21% of respondents in psy-
chiatry/psychoanalysis and 21% in

pediatrics.

Pediatrics doubtless owes some of its
preeminence to the relative ease of ac-
ceptance a woman can expect who
chooses pediatrics over, say, surgery—
which is among the last bastions of male
supremacy in the medical world today.
Women who chose psychiatry often men-
tioned its relative flexibility of scheduling
as a boon to the woman physician’s fam-
ily life.

Curiously, perhaps, the women in our
survey have not chosen obstetrics and
gynecology in any great numbers; al-
though popular in the twenties (16%),
ob/gyn did not capture more than 6% of
respondents in any of the succeeding
decades. Only 5% of the survey group as
a whole were in this field.

Public health (and/or community
medicine, occupational medicine, indus-
trial medicine) attracted some respond-
ents (5% overall), as did radiology (5%)
and hematology (3%). Other areas of
specialization included a smattering of
fairly standard fields (anaesthesiology,
cardiology, endocrinology, geriatrics,
oncology, pathology, rehabilitation) as
well as a few unusual ones like peripheral
vascular disease and calcium metabolism.

There were no surgeons at all among
our respondents until the forties, when
there were two; six women chose surgery
during the sixties, and two have become
surgeons thus far in the seventies. Aside

from the expected comments about
“male chauvinism” among surgeons,
respondents warned of the severity of the
competition, the excessive physical strain,
the demands on one’s time, and the un-
ending sense of urgency with which the
aspiring surgeon much be prepared to
contend. Surgery was thought to be a
poor choice for the woman who plans to
have a family; the only other specialty
from which young women were strongly
warned away was radiology— which
should not be undertaken until after
one’s children are born, according to one
alumna (presumably because of the
danger of genetic damage).

When asked to gauge the effect of
being a woman on one’s career at this
stage, our respondents provided some
interesting answers. In most decades, gen-
der was not found to be a great hindrance
in teaching or in research; upwards of
60% in all years thought that their sex
had had no effect on their progress in
those respects, although 20% or more
thought being a woman had impeded
them as academics.

With regard to private practice, how-
ever, the response was quite different.
While 23% again reported feeling hin-
dered, only 45% of respondents reported
no effect, and the remaining 27% thought
their being a woman had been helpful in
private practice— a much higher percent-
age than reported with respect to any

HOW RESPONDENTS THOUGHT THAT BEING A WOMAN
HAD AFFECTED THEIR OVERALL CAREERS, BY DECADE

No effect
(%)

Hindered

(%)

Helped

(%)

Mixed

(%)

1898 - 1909

1910- 1919

1920 - 1929

1930- 1939

1940 - 1949

1950 - 1959

1960- 1969

1970’s to date

All respondents

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 5

other stage in their careers. Among the
sixties alumnae, in fact, more than one-
third (36%) felt they had benefited in
private practice from being female, and
two of the five respondents from the
1910-19 decade ag^reed.

City vs. Country

We wondered whether, over the course
of this century, practicing women physi-
cians (as represented by our respondents)
would show evidence of any strong trends
toward or away from big-city practices as
opposed to suburban or rural practices.
By and large, we found no such trends.
Between 60 and 70 per cent of respond-
ents in all decades are working in an ur-
ban environment, with about 20% in sub-
urban communities and a few in rural
areas, mixed city/suburban/rural practices,
or practicing abroad (about 5% in each
category). The major exception was
among alumnae from the 30’s, of whom a
high of 14% have rural practices. (We can
only guess the reason for this anomaly:
perhaps they chose to leave the cities dur-
ing the Depression era, and have remained
where they settled; or perhaps, now en-
tering their sixties, a number of our 30’s
physicians have been successful enough
financially to retire to a sunny practice in
the country!)

Earning Power

We inquired about the financial
aspects of our respondents’ careers, as
well. Overall, only 4% earn less than
$10,000 a year; 31% report incomes of
$10,000 to $25,000; and another 30%
are in the $25,000 to $40,000 bracket.
Seventeen per cent earn between $40,000
and $55,000 a year, and 18% earn
$55,000 or more.

As might be expected, the higher in-
comes cluster in the decades from the
thirties to the fifties, among women who
have reached the peak of their careers.
Somewhat lower incomes are reported by
pre-1930’s alumnae, and by graduates
from the sixties who are still working
their way up the career ladder. Interest-
ingly, all the seventies grads who reported
incomes were in the $10,000 to $25,000
bracket, indicating that those who are
Just starting out are earning at least a liv-
ing wage, even as interns and residents.

Help or Hindrance?

To get an overview of whether, in gen-

eral, our alumnae doctors thought their
gender had served them well or ill as phy-
sicians, we averaged our respondents’ an-
swers to how being a woman had affected
them at each stage of their careers. As a
group, an average of 60% felt their sex
didn’t matter; 21% said it was a hin-
drance; and 15% said it was a help (with
4% giving mixed replies). These percent-
ages hold true (as we have seen) for most
of the series of “effect of gender” ques-
tions, with the exception of the medical
school phase and the private practice
responses. On average, the twenties and
the forties grads had the highest percent-
age of “no effect” responses, while alum-
nae from other decades had larger per-
centages of either “helped” or “hin-
dered” replies. Perhaps we may see a ray
of hope in the fact that the seventies
grads had the highest average percentage
of “helped” responses of any decade sur-
veyed: one-fourth of today’s young Bar-
nard doctors find being a woman an
advantage.

Marriage and Family Life

Respondents uniformly had a lot to
say about the inherent difficulties of
combining a career in medicine with mar-
riage and children. The rewards of medi-
cine—and there are many— must be
viewed in the context of the 24-hour-a-
day commitment which is often required;
and the myriad compromises— large and
small, personal and professioncd, affecting
not only the physician but her family and
patients as well— that must be taken into
account.

Of all respondents, 18% have remained
single. More than a third of the 1920’s
alumnae never married; and the percent-
age between 1930 and 1970 ranged be-
tween 9% and 15%. Of 1970’s respond-
ents, almost half are single, suggesting a
trend toward either fewer marriages or
later ones.

Sixty-five per cent of all respondents
are married, another 9% are widowed,
and 8% are separated or divorced. The
divorce rate varied considerably by
decade: the first reporting divorces are
the 20’s graduates, with 14%. Between
1930 and 1950, the rate stayed low, at
3%; but one-fifth of the fifties alumnae
are separated or divorced. Among sixties
women the figure drops to 8%.

Like the alumnae who participated in
the 1955 Barnard Alumnae survey of

“Barnard Women in White,” our respond-
ents agree that it is possible, but extreme-
ly difficult, to combine marriage and
children with a medical career. Among
the requirements for success are said to
be: a supportive husband, a cooperative
family, dependable housekeeping and
child-care help, a balanced set of priori-
ties, boundless energy, organization,
realistic goals, the ability to compromise,
dedication, and a sense of humor.

All are agreed that, for the aspiring
physician, every moment must be
planned— and particularly so for the phy-
sician who aspires to be wife and mother
as well. From the beginning of pre-med
training to finding the perfect husband to
timing births to coincide with vacations
to finding reliable household employees—
“forget about spontaneity,” advised one
doctor; “there is no such thing.”

Despite careful planning and a great
deal of perseverance, not all married
alumnae could report outstanding profes-
sional success and personal happiness. But
many wrote eloquently of the rich re-
wards of family life, saying, in effect, that
their struggles had been well worth the
effort. In either case, there were often
frustrating career postponements as the
children grew up, or as the husband relo-
cated; there were many moments of self-
doubt and guilt; and there were instances
of severe depression involving conflicts
among a respondent’s professional,
family, and social roles.

Husbands

Seventy-four per cent of married res-
pondents had husbands who were physi-
cians, and the vast majority of alumnae
who commented on this felt that an MD
husband was the best kind for a female
physician to have. One pointed out,
somewhat ironically, that whereas the
ideal husband for a female doctor is prob-
ably a male doctor, the ideal wife for a
male doctor is probably not a. female
doctor. We can sense something of the
burden of a lingering double standard in
this perceptive comment.

The female physician who is also a
wife and mother is still expected to as-
sume primary responsibility for home and
family; so if she can’t expect to find a
husband who will do his full share at
home, at least she can try to find one
who will understand what it means to be
a physician— what the demands and the

A STATISTICAL PORTRAIT OF SEVEN DECADES OF BARNARD ALUMNAE PHYSICIANS

Other MD’s in family? Yes; 65% No: 35%

Major at Barnard: Sciences: 87% Humanities; 12% Combined science & humanities: 1%

Medical schools with largest number of alumnae:

New York University 42

Columbia (P & S) ......... .33

Cornell 17

SUNY-Downstate 17

New York Medical College . . .15

(Women’s) Medical College

of Pennsylvania 14

Harvard 12

Albert Einstein (Yeshiva) ... .11
Yale 5

Class rank in
medical school:

Top third 71%

Middle third . . . .25%
Low third 4%

Total number of medical schools represented: 50

A reas of specializa tio n :

Psychiatry & Psychoanalysis 21%

Pediatrics 20%

General Practice, Family Medicine,

Internal Medicine 19%

Obstetrics & Gynecology 5%

Public Health, Community/Occupa-

tional/Industrial Medicine 5%

Radiology 5%

All Surgery 4%

Hematology 3%

Other specialty 20%

Nature of community Urban: 65% Suburban: 21% Rural: 5% Foreign: 2%
where practicing: Mixed (urban/suburban, urban/rural, etc.): 7%

Income: Under $10,000 to $25,000 to $40,000 to Over

$10,000: 4% $25,000: 31% $40,000: 30% $55,000: 17% $55,000; 18%

How did being a woman affect your career, overall?

No effect: 60% Hindered: 21% Helped: 15% Mixed effect: 4%

Marital status: Single: 18% Married: 65% Widowed: 9% Separated or divorced: 8%

Is (or was) husband an MD? Yes: 74% No: 26%

Children: None: 34% One or two: 42% Three or more: 24%

If you were planning a career today, would you still choose medicine?

Yes': 90% No (or not sure): 10%

responsibilities are. The male physician
who wants to be a husband and father,
however, has more chance of finding a
wife who will understand (or at least put
up with) the demands of his medical
career and take over his share of the work
at home if he chooses a spouse with a less
demanding career of her own. Hmmm . . .

In selecting a spouse, one alumna said,
what the career woman really needs to

look for is a wife. “Young women need
to be encouraged to look for this in po-
tential husbands: men who will support
and share in her efforts and be emotional-
ly supporting in household problems as
well as helping with chores.”

Children

About a third (34%) of alumnae sur-
veyed have no children. Not quite half

(42%) have one or two; and 24% have
three or more. Again, the percentages
varied by decade. In the twenties, al-
though two-thirds of the women were
married, only half had children. In the
thirties, 90% of respondents were married
but one-quarter of the total group had no
children. More alumnae from the forties
and fifties had children, and more of
them; but in the sixties, there are again

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 7

more childless couples and those with
children have fewer. Two respondents
from the 1970’s were pregnant when they
sent in their questionnaires; the others
have no children, although several are
married. (A number of the biographies in
this issue describe vividly the difficulties
of juggling a physician’s schedule with
childbearing. Many respondents felt that
the wisest course is to delay having chil-
dren at least until the bulk of one’s train-
ing years are over.)

Although household responsibilities
are increasingly shared between spouses,
parenthood is apparently still mostly a
mother’s domain— even when the mother
is also a full-time physician. Many alum-
nae reported that the compromises re-
quired for managing both motherhood
and career can result in tremendous feel-
ings of stress and guilt, side by side with
the deep sense of fulfillment derived from
leading a busy, challenging, and stimulat-
ing life. The effects of that busy schedule
are frequently felt most keenly by the
husband and children, who sense that
they are competing with patients for the
mother’s attention. On the positive side,
more than a few respondents noted that
their children seemed to have developed a
sense of independence and autonomy
from having had to make many decisions
on their own; and that often, as children
grew older, they evinced feelings of pride
in their mothers’ accomplishments. (In-
deed, our news of several alumnae doc-
tors came to us not from them, but in
letters from their admiring offspring.)

Mostly, They’d Do it Again

Nine-tenths of the alumnae physicians
who answered our questionnaire say that,
if they were planning a career today, they
would still choose medicine. The most
negative feelings came from the twenties
women, of whom 20% said they
wouldn’t, or weren’t sure they would.
With perhaps understandable enthusiasm,
the seventies graduates had a higher-than-
average number of positive responses:
93%. But so did the 1930’s alumnae (also
93%), who surely have had plenty of time
to think things over.

Virtually without exception, all our
alumnae doctors reported having experi-
enced a great number of difficulties at
one time or another: frustrations, obsta-

cles, crises, guilt, pain, and— not least of
all— chronic fatigue. And yet, so rich are
the rewards of doctoring for those who
are truly committed, that only one out
of ten would choose differently today.
Even those who began during the days
when equal rights were only a wistful
dream can look back over the years and
find them good.

The Changing Perspective

The results of the survey on alumnae
doctors conducted by Barnard Alumnae
in 1955 were summarized by Clementene
Walker Wheeler ’36 in her article, “Bar-
nard Women in White.” A comparison of
the questions raised in that report with
those covered in this one, and of the an-
swers to those questions, reveals some
interesting changes in the way the subject
of women in medicine has been viewed
during the intervening twenty-two years.

Ms. Wheeler devoted a lot of space to a
denunciation (backed up with statistics
from a 1945 survey of 1,240 women phy-
sicians) of the popular theory that wo-
men should not be trained as doctors
because so many of them marry and stop
practicing. This disreputable old canard
has been so thoroughly demolished in
recent years that the statistics of profes-
sionally inactive respondents was one of
the last things we looked at. For the rec-
ord, be it known that of the 210 respond-
ents who graduated from Barnard since
1930, a mere six (2.86%) are not now
working as physicians. And— after a good
forty years of devoted service— almost
half the alumnae from the twenties are
still practicing, and at least one that we
know of who graduated before 1920 is
still toiling away.

With respect to this and all the other
issues we’ve discussed, it must be said in
all fairness (as Ms. Wheeler also pointed
out) that women with something positive
to report may have been more likely to
respond, so the possibility exists that our
survey sample may be biased to some
extent by self-selection. Nevertheless, we
believe that the record of these outstand-
ing women speaks for itself.

In Ms. Wheeler’s study, fewer than 13
respondents “came from medical families
that might have influenced their choice,”
as compared with the 65% of our 1977
sample who had physician-relatives.

(Plenty of doctors had daughters, even in
1955; but few of the daughters became
doctors.)

Some things, of course, never change.
Medical school is still expensive, and our
respondents and the ’55 respondents re-
ported similar means of financing their
medical educations: a combination of
money from families (sometimes hus-
bands), loans, scholarships, and— the hard
way— jobs, jobs, jobs.

Ms. Wheeler found the scarcity of ob-
stetricians and gynecologists among her
sample a curious anomaly, as did we
when the same trend appeared among
today’s respondents. The 1945 study
mentioned above “suggested that the ex-
planation might be a shortage of good
residencies in the field which are open to
women.” We can only wonder what the
explanation may be today for the appar-
ent continuing reluctance of women phy-
sicians to specialize in ministering to
women patients.

Wheeler wrote that, in spite of every-
thing, “most of the doctors felt that enor-
mous progress has been made in establish-
ing women in medicine. Once a girl has
been admitted to a medical school she
can, with diligence and ability, make her
way. The problem is to convince more
medical school and hospital administra-
tors that times have changed since 1905,
and that they must, in the public interest,
revise their 1905 quotas for the admission
of qualified girls to medical training.”

There is no doubt that times have
changed since 1905— and since 1955— and
that women in medicine have been af-
fected along with the rest of us. Many
alumnae doctors wrote critically about
some of the ways the medical profession
has changed over the years, citing govern-
ment bureaucracy; malpractice suits; a de-
terioration of the doctor-patient relation-
ship due in part to over-specialization;
and trends toward socialized medicine,
which many oppose. Nevertheless, the
majority of alumnae who have chosen to
pursue a career in medicine want to re-
main in the field, and they encourage
young women to join them. (“Do it,”
they urged; “and be prepared to work
very hard.”)

Let us salute the strides society has
(however haltingly) made since 1955 by
noting that, in 1977, serious female pre-
medical candidates are never-never—
referred to as “qualified ”

JH[i story Of An Early Campaign

Battering Down Doors at P & S

by Joan Houston McCulloch ’50

Barnard has had students fascinated by
medicine ever since Anna Von Sholly of
the class of ’98 went off to become the
college’s first doctor. Yet by World War
I, New York City still had no first-rate
medical school willing to grant degrees
to women.

In 1914, Dean Virginia Gildersleeve,
who had recently waged successful
campaigns to get her students into the
University Faculties of Architecture,
Journalism and Music, had her eye on
“P & S,” Columbia’s prestigious College
of Physicians and Surgeons.

P & S, unlike that Maginot Line of
male exclusiveness, the Law School,
was not unreceptive to the notion of ac-
cepting women. University President
Nicholas Murray Butler was decidedly
interested in the idea, the more so,
perhaps, as his own niece hoped to be-
come a doctor. But the final decision
must rest with the P & S trustees and
faculty, and although a study committee
had recommended that the Medical
School admit both sexes in the near
future, there were practical objections
to doing so just yet.

Women would require all sorts of
expensive arrangements— separate study
rooms and rest rooms, complicated
changes in plumbing. The Medical School
was already overcrowded, and the Uni-
versity was in the midst of a $35,000,000
fund-raising campaign to build a new
facility at 165th Street. When that was
completed, P & S would think about co-
education. Till then, Barnard’s would-be
doctors must go elsewhere or wait.

But the class of 1917 turned up a
strong group of talented students who
were set upon MB’s and did not want
to wait. One in particular stood out.

In her autobiography. Many a Good
Crusade, Dean Gildersleeve wrote: “I
had the perfect candidate for admission,
a charming, sensible, and brilliantly able
young Swedish woman, Gulli Lindh, who
was to graduate in June 1917. 1 took up

Gulli Lindh Muller

negotiations with the Dean of the Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr.
Samuel Lambert.” As the dust of the ne-
gotiations thickened above Morningside
Heights, she put it in stronger terms: “I
am using Gulli Lindh as a battering-ram
to batter down the doors of P & S for
women.”

Gulli Charlotte Lindh had been born
in Sweden in 1888, and she had known
since the age of six that she wanted to
become a doctor. She had been educated
privately, but had spent two years at a
school in Stockholm, where a teacher
advised her to seek out a university in
America. During her first months in
New York she tutored in English, took
courses at Wadleigh High School, and
worked as companion to an elderly lady.
After passing the College Entrance Board
Examinations, she entered Barnard in
1914 and completed an excellent first
year.

In the fall of her second yecu:, Gulli
Lindh contracted typhoid fever. Far
from home and short of funds, she was
saved from the charity ward by Dean

Gildersleeve’s help, and cheered by the
Dean’s assurance that her place at Bar-
nard would be held open till she returned.

By the second semester, Gulli Lindh
was back at college and eager to make
up for lost time. Despite illness and rel-
ative unfamiliarity with the English
language, she completed the requirements
at Barnard in two and a half years. In
the spring of 1917, she was accepted by
Johns Hopkins Medical School for the
following fall.

But Gulli Lindh did not want to leave
New York, and the thought that the
medical school of her own university was
about to pass over one of the finest stu-
dents Barnard had ever turned out was
enough to keep Dean Gildersleeve awake
at night. The Dean was also concerned
about those other capable students, for
most of whom there was no alternative
medical school, and who showed so
much promise of making excellent
doctors.

Dr. Lambert had moved a little from
his original position, but he had set
almost impossible conditions. To accom-
modate women, an addition must be
built on P & S, and that would cost a
minimum of $50,000. If Barnard could
come up with that sum by next summer,
he would admit a few female candidates
in September. No $50,000— no annex-
no women.

So in January, Dean Gildersleeve
wrote a letter to the editor of the Eve-
ning Post, explaining the problem and
asking for public donations to build
“a very simple two-story addition to
the present buildings of P & S.”

Small checks began to trickle in, but
those whom the college asked for larger
gifts thought the scheme impractical.
Why put so much investment into a
temporary building when P & S was
moving in a few years anyway?

In the spring Gulli Lindh was gradu-
ated cum laude and inducted into Phi
Beta Kappa. She had also won the

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 9

Carolyn Duror Fellowship, awarded annu-
ally by the Barnard faculty for the most
promising senior in the class. And she
had a reply date of July 1st for Johns
Hopkins.

In desperation, Dean Gildersleeve
made what must surely go down as one
of the rashest predictions in the history
of Barnard. Take this Swedish woman,
she begged, and Gulli Lindh would out-
perform all the men. The Dean gave her
guarantee upon it— at graduation she
would head the class.

During this period, Lindh herself
had been working on the situation. She
persuaded friends to contribute money,
and made regular visits every week or
two to Dr. Lambert’s office.

“The Lord has sent the hornet!” he
groaned when he saw her coming.

Other hornets were also pestering him.
A graduate student from Wellesley named
Jean Corwin wanted a chance at an MD,
and they were only the two most persist-
ent ones. But he was a practical man and
stuck to his conditions. No $50,000— no
women. By July, they were still $35,000
short of that goal.

One of the groups which had inter-
ested itself in this effort was the Women’s
Medical Association, and someone from
that organization had written a letter to
a millionaire philanthropist in San An-
tonio, who had given several large dona-
tions to educational institutions. For
some weeks this letter had gone un-
answered. The Texas man had recently
pledged $50,000 for a new building at
the State University of Texas, and he
was having too many troubles right
there to worry about problems in New
York. But because of a providential
disagreement with the Board of Regents
he withdrew his commitment and, on
July 15th, somewhat concerned that he
might be too late, he sent off a wire that
ended:

“I am now prepared to do what I
think would have been better in
the first place— secure the admission
of women to the Columbia Medical
College.”

Two days later. Dr. Lambert wrote
Dean Gildersleeve that $65,000 was now
subscribed. He was therefore notifying
President Butler that P & S would admit
its first group of women students.

P & S took 1 1 women that fall, six of
them Barnard graduates, though not all

Dorothea Curnow

were from the class of 1917. Once ac-
cepted, they reported that they were
fairly treated and experienced no dis-
crimination from faculty or male col-
leagues. Several dropped out along the
way. Six women graduated, and in 1921,
President Butler congratulated Dean
Gildersleeve on the performance of her
students. Her prediction had been ac-
curate. Gulli Lindh stood at the top of
the class. Another member of the group
(probably Jean Corwin) ranked third.
Another Barnard alumna placed fifth.

Since choice of internships was
awarded on the basis of class rank,

Drs. Lindh and Corwin became the
first women to intern at Columbia
Presbyterian Hospital, an accomplish-
ment which, in Gulli Lindh’s mind,
even overshadowed their success in
opening up the Medical School.

The Barnard women who gradu-
ated from P & S in 1921 followed di-
verse paths in later life, but they all
stuck to their medicine.

Gulli Lindh married the Reverend
James Arthur Muller, a professor of
theology and church historian, whom
she had met on a trip to the Orient.

She moved with him to Boston, and
joined the Thorndike Memorial Labora-
tory, Boston City Hospital, to work on
studies in blood pathology. Later, she
became director of the laboratory at the
Rutland (MA) State Sanatorium, where
she followed blood changes in tubercular
patients. In 1940 she was appointed chief
of the New England Hospital for Women

and Children, a post which she resigned
13 years later to devote herself to writing
medical books. Dr. Muller died in 1972 at
the age of 85.

Dr. Elizabeth Wright Hubbard ’17
interned at Bellevue Hospital and spent
a year in Geneva studying homeopathy.
She practiced from an office in Man-
hattan, wrote a textbook on her special-
ty, and served as editor of an inter-
national Homeopathic Medical Journal.
She was president of the New York State
and New York Gounty Homeopathic
Medical Societies, and in 1960, of the
American Institute of Homeopathy.

May Rivkin Mayers ’ll, not one of
the original group, began her training
at George Washington Medical School
and transferred toP&Sinl919. After
interning at Mount Sinai Hospital, with a
specialty in urology, she became a pio-
neer in industrial hygiene and medicine,
carrying out research on such industrial
diseases as lead and carbon monoxide
poisoning, and occupational causes of
cancer. Much of her life was spent with
the New York State Department of La-
bor, where she was Assistant Director,
Chief of Medical Unit, and Editor of Pub-
lications of the Division of Industrial Hy-
giene. Dr. Mayers was already married, to
a law professor, when she began her medi-
cal training. She died in 1974, leaving a
family of children and grandchildren.

Dorothea E. Curnow ’17 interned at
Newark Memorial Hospital and stepped
into the Brooklyn practice of smother
woman physician who was moving to
California “right after she voted for A1
Smith for Governor.” During that night,
her first patient tried to commit suicide
by swallowing bichloride of mercury.

Dr. Curnow became Chief of an
Allergy Clinic at Brooklyn Hospital, and
in the 1930’s, the New York Bureau of
Charities persuaded her to open a birth
control clinic for poor women in the
City Park Chapel. In 1954, she joined
the staff of the Health Service of Okla-
homa A & M College, now Oklahoma
State University, and served there until
her retirement in 1960.

Dr. Curnow is now the sole surviving
member of the group and may be con-
sidered its unofficial historian. Her
accounts in Barnard Alumnae, P & S
Quarterly, and other publications have
preserved for us many of the details
of this story.

by Nora Lourie Percival ’36

^Julielma Alsop '03

Our First College Pkysician

Dr. Alsop in her Barnard Days

When Dr. Alsop retired in 1948 as
Barnard’s college doctor, an alumnae
magazine story called her “guide, philo-
sopher and friend to thirty classes of Bar-
nard girls.” Mary Jennings ’21 wrote:

“In 1917 when Dr. Alsop came to Bar-
nard . . . there was no medical depart-
ment. Physical exams were conducted in
one of the classrooms with a few screens
pushed together . . . There were no hy-
giene lectures and no one thought of con-
sulting the doctor for anything but a gym
cut. The college was definitely not health-
minded.

“Gently, patiently, and persistently
Dr. Alsop has worked to foster interest in
physical and mental health. Now there is
a very weU-equipped doctor’s office and
treatment room with a nurse in attend-
ance. The Doctor has regular daily hours
for consultations. There are physical
exams for all classes . . . Hygiene lectures
are not only required but popular, and
the Doctor’s advice is sought on many
problems. It is considered unintelligent,
instead of interesting, to be delicate.

“There is nothing of the hidebound
conservative about Dr. Alsop. She is al-
ways ready for new ideas and wants to
share them with the undergraduates. She
encourages discussion of all aspects of life
and health, and so she started a series of
talks on marriage problems. She made
vitamins a living issue years before the
capsules became the great American can-
dy. Hormones and their actions were
common talk at college before ever they
became generally popular. Psychosomatic
medicine is the newest medical angle, but
Dr. Alsop realized the importance of
mental balance on the health of her girls
many years ago, and in her own sensible
way practised unobtrusive psychiatry.

“Because Dr. Alsop is one of the few
people who listen, her office is no longer
the last resort of the desperate, but the
first thought of the perplexed. . . . (Her)
ability to observe and enter into other
people’s lives is one thing that . . . has
kept her young in mind and spirit as well
as body. Her sense of humor is one of
the appealing things about her. She be-
longs to the rare people who can laugh at

themselves. . .

“One wonders
sometimes how she
finds time to do all
she does. She has
long daily hours in
Barnard Hall. She
takes care of pa-
tients in the infirma-
ry. She has written a
number of books,
two at least verging
on the ‘best seller’
list. She lectures at
college, to clubs, to
the YWCA. She has
a home and a gar-
den. . . T get up at
four o’clock to
write,’ she says. ‘I
think better then.

And if you just keep
right on you can get a
lot accomplished.’ ”

Still enthusiastic
and independent at
96, Dr. Alsop divides
her time between
visits with nieces and
nephews around New
England and the old
Westport cottage
where I visited her this summer. The well-
remembered twinkle was still in her eye
as she told the story of how the house
was acquired back in the twenties, by her
and Barnard drama professor Minor
Latham— a story characteristic of the
doctor’s downright approach to life’s
challenges.

They were walking in New York one
day when Professor Latham (raised on a
Mississippi plantation) complained, “I
can’t stand living in the city! Sometimes
I want to chuck it all and go home ! ” And
Dr, Alsop said, “Why don’t we buy a
house in the country and commute?” She
suggested Westport merely because a man
she wanted to talk with lived there. Miss
Latham objected that they couldn’t look
for a house without a car.

“I simply wrote to ‘The Woman Real
Estate Agent, Westport, Connecticut,’ ”

laughed Dr. Alsop. “There was one, and
she met our train and took us around. We
told her we were professional women, and
had two thousand dollars to spend.”

After seeing a nice little place near the
sea, they were shown a dilapidated two-
room cottage on the edge of a swampy
ravine that had been used as a local dump.
Not a very hopeful spectacle. But one of
the househunters was a gardener and the
other an optimist. “So we bought it,”
says Dr. Alsop. In 1957 she wrote a de-
lightful account for the alumnae maga-
zine of the wonderful garden they
brought to life over the years. Though the
professor died in 1968 (at 85) and the
doctor’s age bars gardening chores, the
overgrown grounds and the book-filled
cottage still speak of the happy half-cen-
tury spent there, surrounded by birds and
flowers.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 j 11

The Professor’s Garden in the Fifties

After her retirement, the doctor had
more time for her writing, a talent she
shared with sister Mary O’Hara, author of
My Friend Flicka. Her books have ranged
from poetry to advice on health care and
going to college, from children’s stories
and a play to a biography and an account
of her missionary work.

Gulielma Alsop was raised in Brooklyn
Heights, where her father was an Episco-
pal rector. She came to medicine through
religion. Imbued with missionary zeal, she
was advised by her father to get medical
training first, and she came to Barnard to
prepare for medical school— the third pre-
med in its short history.

She still retains vivid memories of
commuting to College from Remsen
Street on the horsecars. Her mother was
dead and no one in the busy household
thought about providing sustenance for
the student’s long day, so Gulielma took
along bread, fruit, nuts, whatever was
easy to carry and not perishable— the
beginning of a lifelong taste for simple
natural foods.

After graduating, she took her MD at
the University of Vienna, then interned at
the Women’s Medical College in Philadel-
phia—an institution whose centennial his-
tory she wrote in 1963. At last she was
ready, and sailed off to China to serve
in a mission hospital. But within three
years civil war broke out, and the church
recalled its women missionaries from the
dangerous areas. At loose ends. Dr. Alsop
was delighted when Dean Gildersleeve
asked her to set up the first health service
at Barnard.

Her memories of her three decades
there range over crises like the flu epide-
mic (I sent them home at the first cough)
and a hurricane (We set up cots and kept
the commuters overnight) to the first sex
lectures (It’s all a part of life, and I felt
we should learn to understand how to
de^d with it)— a bold step in a day when
such subjects were generally taboo.

She was interested in everything about
her girls, and every interest inspired acti-
vity. During World War H she wrote a
guide to personal adjustment in war work
and marriage, Arms and the Girl. She

DID YOU GRADUATE
FROM BARNARD?

We’re looking for Barnard alumnae
who may not have finished their col-
lege education and would be interested
in coming back to Barnard to com-
plete requirements for the degree.

If you would like more informa-
tion, please write to the Dean of
Studies, Barnard College, 606 West
120 Street, New York, NY 10027. Be
sure to include your college name and
affiliated year, to facilitate the check-
ing of your records.

acted in sketches to accompany Professor
Latham’s lecture on “How to See a Play.”
She advised alumnae on mental hygiene
in the pages of their magazine. Whatever
she did, she did with gusto. Perhaps her
summing-up in the medical questionnaire
she filled out for this issue characterizes
her best:

“I enjoyed my life both at Barnard
and in China very well and got along well
in both places. I have published 9 books,
traveled marvelously and bought a coun-
try place. If I had it to do over I would
do it again with pleasure.”

AWARD NOMINATIONS

The Distinguished Alumna Award
was established in 1967 as “a way to
honor outstanding women, to help
overcome prejudice against women
and to inspire gifted young women.”
It is given to an alumna for distin-
guished service in her field; specifically,
for outstanding contribution to her
field of specialty, her community or
country. One award only may be given
each year.

In 1975 a new Alumnae Recognition
Award was added, for outstanding ser-
vice cmd devotion to Barnard. Up to
three of these awards may be given
each year.

A nomination for either award may
be made by any alumna. PLEASE RE-
QUEST THE APPROPRIATE FORMS
FROM THE ALUMNAE OFFICE, 606

West 120th Street, New York, NY
10027. FORMS MUST BE COMPLE-
TED AND SENT TOGETHER WITH
SUPPORTING MATERIAL, to The
Awards Committee, c/o the Alumnae
Office, BEFORE DECEMBER 1, 1977.

Nominations for the Distinguished
Alumna Award should include:

1. The nature of her achievement

2. The honors and awards she has
won, publications, etc.

3. The ways in which she personi-
fies the ideals of a liberal arts
education

4. Your reasons for the nomination

Nominations for the Recognition
Award should include details of the
nominee’s record of service to Barnard
and your reasons for the nomination.

1. Tke Early Years

by Emma Dietz Stecher ’25, Chemistry Professor Emeritus

Barnard premedical advising must be
viewed in the perspective of the changing
admission policies of the medical schools
towards the acceptance of women.
Until 1964, except for the two world
wars, fewer than 6% of MD graduates in
the U. S. were women, but by 1973
20% of the entering medical school class
were women. Between 1959 and 1972,
the number of U. S. medical schools
increased from 85 to 114, and the
number admitting 10% or more women
in each class increased from 4 to 84.
Government subsidy and government
pressure helped to achieve these increases.

Completely informal in the early days,
premedical advising became necessarily
more and more structured as the number
of applicants increased. The solid achieve-
ments of Barnard MDs in medical school
and in practice have undoubtedly helped
to lift the ban against women. Barnard
is still known as a promising college for
prerneds and advising them has always
been exciting and rewarding.

The first MD to graduate from Barnard
was Anna I. Von Sholly, class of ’98. She
finished Cornell Medical College in 1902
and was active in medicine for 41 years.
During World War 1 she served as a
doctor at a French army hospital near
Paris, for which she was awarded the
Croix de Guerre. In New York City
she was associated with the Post
Graduate Hospital and with Bellevue,
and for 25 years was a bacteriologist for
the Board of Health.

Medical Alumnae in
Barnard Service

Dr. Gulielma F. Alsop ’03 will be
remembered as the first Barnard College
Physician who cheerfully served 30
classes of students from 1917 to 1948.
She organized the first Medical Office,
introduced physical exams for all
students, and initiated health and hygiene
lectures (see page 11).

Our next college doctor was Marjory
Nelson ’28, a graduate of Cornell in 1932.
She served Barnard for 23 years and

retired in 1971. Un-
der her supervision,
the medical service
expanded to include
a part-time gynecol-
ogist, two nurses,
and eventually a psy-
chiatric staff, with
an infirmary area at
St. Luke’s Hospital.

She took a great in-
terest in individual
students and was es-
pecially encouraging
to those who wished
to study medicine,
and she could coun-
sel them from her
own wide experience
before coming to
Barnard. Married to
a physician, Dr.

Frank Spellman, she
was in private prac-
tice for nine years
while raising two
sons. Later she was
for three years Chief
Medical Supervisor
of the Mt. Vernon
Board of Education,
a full-time job.

Students and faculty of this period
will also remember Dr. A. Louise Brush
’25, who was appointed as the first psy-
chiatrist (part time) in 1951. A graduate
of P & S in 1929, Louise Brush was board
certified in her specialty, and then taught
at Columbia and Cornell Medical Schools
for many years. She and her architect
husband live in the country but she still
commutes to practice in New York City.
For almost 20 years she helped many at
Barnard through crises and emotional
problems. President McIntosh is quoted
as saying that when she came to Barnard
in 1946, she was given two immediate
mandates, to introduce psychiatric
counselling, and to get rid of the pigeons
defacing Barnard Hall. The pigeons fled,
discouraged by the new wire spikes. The

Professor Stecher Among her Students

counselling program gradually expanded
to include three part-time psychiatrists
and three psychiatric social workers, as
the enrollment rose to 2000, and in-
creased coeducation placed new pres-
sures on students. Helen Dym Stein ’51
was a part-time psychiatrist from 1966
to 1970 and worked with mixed groups
of Barnard and Columbia students.

Barnard Heads The List

Our hundredth MD was from the class
of 1930. The two world wars created a
shortage of doctors, and the government
pressured medical schools to accept more
women, at least temporarily. Students
were quick to take advantage of these
opportunities, and the class of 1955
produced the 300th Barnard MD.(See

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 13

graph.) But the fraction of women
graduating from U. S. medical schools
had fallen back to 6%.

At this time government reviews
showed that Barnard alumnae were gain-
ing MD degrees and doctorates in out-
standing numbers. A Public Health Sur-
vey of MDs granted to graduates of wo-

men’s colleges between 1950 and 1959
reported that Barnard was at the top of
the list. It had produced 82 MDs for the
10-year period, or 29 per thousand
graduates.

During the years 1920-1962 Barnard
graduates also distinguished themselves
by obtaining 330 U. S. doctoral degrees
(non-MD) for a total of 8944 graduates."^
This placed it first among the women’s
colleges which did not grant degrees
above the B. A. level (Bryn Mawr, Rad-
cliffe and Mt. Holyoke award higher
degrees). It represents a rate of 36.9
doctorates per thousand graduates, which
was more than 1 7 times the national
average for women college graduates.

It is also interesting to know how well
our graduates performed in medical
school. For a short period the Associa-
tion of American Medical Colleges made
this confidential information available
to us. Of the 113 students entering medi-
cal schools between 1950 and 1961,
only seven dropped out (6%). Of the 98
for whom we have information, 36%
had a four-year average rating in the
upper third of the medical school class,
10 transferred to other mediccil schools
with no loss of time, and nine took
leaves of one to three years before
completing their MDs.

This high performance and high
production of MD and doctoral degrees
reflected not only the quality of educa-
tion offered by Barnard but also the
encouragement and example of the many
women scholars on the faculty.

Surveys of Women Doctors

To counter the widespread rumor that
women MDs did not practice, especially
if they married. Professor Florence de L.
Lowther ’12 of the Barnard Zoology
Department and Professor Helen R,
Downes ’14 of the Chemistry Depart-
ment reported on 1240 women MDs
graduating from seven large eastern
medical schools between 1921 and
1940.4 This was one-third of all the
women physicians graduating from U. S.

schools during this period. They found
that in 1943, 90% were in full-time
practice. Of those who married, 82%
practised full time, and 2% part time.
Those who were exclusive specialists
accounted for 24%, while 8% combined
a specialty with general practice. Pedia-
trics, psychiatry, and internal medicine
were the chief fields of specialization.
Only 4% held positions of professorial
rank in medical schools. This excellent
survey, showing the strong professional-
ism of women physicians, undoubtedly
had a wide influence on the attitudes of
the medical schools and the government.

In 1954 the Alumnae Office sent a
questionnaire to 215 Barnard MDs from
the classes of 1902-1950.^ There were
125 replies (58%). Those who had left
Barnard in the 30’s were well settled,
with specialized education completed;
80% were married and many had children
(usually two).

All admitted that it was very difficult
to combine marriage and medicine.
Marriage to a doctor was believed to be
an advantage, and 60% had married
physicians. Individual Barnard alumnae
solved the difficult problem of marriage,
family and career in ingenious ways.
Medical schools cooperated in granting
leaves and arranging transfers to other
schools, often closer to a husband’s
internship or residency. The specialties
reported for the whole group were the
same as those mentioned above: pedi-
atrics, psychiatry, and internal medicine.
But seven had been given the oppor-
tunity to train as surgeons, a new field
for women.

In 1968 Professor Edward King of the
Barnard Chemistry Department sent a
questionnaire to 376 MDs from Barnard
classes of 1902-1964, and received 273
replies (72.6%). Most of the doctors
(86%) were active professionally. An
additional number (11%), almost all
over 60 years old, had retired. Only 3%
were on leave to bear or raise children.
A large number (44%) were in private
practice, the majority full time. Of
the 84 (31%) in hospital service, 49
served full time. The number on medical
school faculties had increased markedly
(68 or 25%, with 29 full time). The most
popular specialties were psychiatry (58),
pediatrics (45), and internal medicine
(19). A high proportion (59%) were
married with children (162 had a total

of 377 children). Many of these figures
probably increased as the 16% still in
training completed their education,
married and had fcimilies.

The Premedical Committee

Before 1951 there was no Premedical
Advisor or Premedical Committee at
Barnard. By that time the average number
entering medical school each year was
eight. They sought advice, usually from
science teachers, and requested letters of
recommendation from three of them to
each of a number of medical schools. As
a teacher of organic chemistry, I had
many requests, and remember writing 50
letters longhand in a single year. Professor
Ingrith Deyrup ’40 of the zoology depart-
ment also spent many hours interviewing
students and writing letters. It was then
decided that a designated Premedical
Advisor was necessary.

Also in the early 1950’s the medical
schools in New York State began annual
conferences where college Premedical
Advisors met with Deans of Medical
Schools to exchange valuable information
of mutual interest. The medical schools
urgently requested properly constructed
committee letters of recommendation in
preference to those written by individual
faculty members.

For about the next ten years, Ingrith
Deyrup and I alternated as Advisors, since
at that time most premedical students
majored in biology or chemistry. The
number of apphcation letters quickly
rose to about 100 per year. But the
success of our budding MDs in medical
school and afterwards has always been a
great source of satisfaction. Even today
occasional letters, telephone calls or
chance meetings at Reunion bring cheer
to a former teacher.

The Premedical Committee system
which evolved contained many of the
features which hold today. At a meeting
with premedical students of all classes
early in the year, a mimeographed
“Guide” was distributed and discussed.
This contained advice on required courses
and statistics on recent admissions of
Barnard students to specific schools. For
juniors there was a time table for taking
the MCAT exams, for a profile interview,
for submitting the applicant’s list of
medical schools, and a description of how
committee letters were prepared. In the
late spring a large ad hoc committee

composed of all science faculty mem-
bers, the junior class advisor, the Dean
of Studies, the college physician, and
the chairman of the Physical Education
Department were invited to meet to
discuss the list of candidates. There was
available in advance an outline of grades
and extra-curricular activities for each
student. All were encouraged to submit
written comments to the chairman,
particularly if they could not attend the
large meeting. Individual committee
members agreed to initiate letters for
students they knew, and the letters were
then circulated for revision. They were
personally signed by the Committee
chairman over the names of the official
Premedical Committee of five faculty
members including the Dean of Studies.
Students ran a Premed Club with invited
speakers, usually current medical students
or Barnard MDs in practice.

During the four years 1962-1965,
when Professor Patricia Dudley of the
Biology Department was Advisor, an
average of 17 applicants (not all success-
ful) requested a total of 225 letters each
year. An outside secretary did the
typing but the Advisor did the sealing and
mailing. This beccune too heavy a burden
to add to a faculty member’s full teaching
and research schedule, so more of the
responsibility was taken over by Dr.
Barbara Schmitter, Dean of Studies, and
her staff.

Dr. Grace King was Premedical
Advisor to the classes of 1970 through
1974, when the number of students
accepted rose to 41 and those applying
were nearly twice this number. Dr.
King was a fortunate choice, because not
only was she a teacher in the Chemistry
Department, but also as a Class Advisor
she was easily available to students, and

had access to a secretarial staff to keep
track of appointments and help process
letters. She did an excellent job for her
premedical students.

With 50 to 75 candidates applying to
medical schools each year, advising and
recommending them has become a full-
time job. In the fall of 1973, Esther
Rowland was appointed Pre-professional
Advisor for premedical students as well
as for those entering legal and paramedi-
cal fields. With her help, students have
continued to gain acceptances, and with
the class of ’76, Barnard’s 759th graduate
entered medical school.

FOOTNOTES

1. Before 1950 numbers of MDs are
plotted according to year of gradua-
tion from Barnard. After 1950 num-
bers are plotted according to the year
of entering medical school, and there-
fore include a few students of earlier
Barnard classes.

2. “Baccalaureate Origins of 1950-1959
Medical Graduates.’’ Public Health
Monograph No. 66.

3. “Doctorate Production in U. S. Uni-
versities 1920-1962 with Baccalaure-
ate Origins of Doctorates in Sciences,

Arts and Professions.” Published by
National Academy of Sciences-
National Research Council 1963 (Pub-
lication 1142). The article credited
Barnard with 201 doctorates for this
period. Alumnae office files and a
questionnaire revealed 330 doctorates
from U. S. universities and 13 from
foreign universities. The major dis-
crepancy resulted because many
Barnard graduates receiving doctoral
degrees were incorrectly listed as
Columbia College graduates. Bar-
nard sent full details to Washington
to set the record straight.

4. “Women in Medicine,” Florence de
Loiselle Lowther and Helen R.
Downes, Journal of the American
Medical Association, vol. 129, pp.512-
514, (1945).

5. “Barnard Women in White” by
Clementine Walker Wheeler ’36, The
Barnard Alumnae Magazine, July ’55,

p. 2.

CNJ

Osj

CSJ

‘i'5

Us.

O’}

05 ,

YEAR OF ENTERING MEDICAL SCHOOL

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 15

NUMBER OF BARNARD M.D. ’

Re -Med At Barnard

II. Today’s Pre-Prof essional Support Services

by Esther Rowland, Pre-Professional Advisor

Before 1970 admission of women to
medical schools was rigidly fixed at less
than 10%, and this policy applied to the
nation as a whole and to more than 75%
of the individual schools. Between 1970
and 1972, the message that women were
indeed not only acceptable but actually
desirable candidates for medical training,
was finally incorporated into the thinking
of potential applicants, advisors and
admissions committees. Why this has
happened and what changes and problems
it presents to an office such as ours will
be discussed below, but we must state at
the outset that this is a truly exciting
time to be working at a women’s college
and especially at a job that deals with the
pre-professional women for whom hori-
zons are ever expanding.

Women are now, for the first time in
American history, being invited to take
their places alongside of men and pre-
sumably in proportionate numbers to
men in the doctoral-level health profes-
sions: medicine, osteopathic medicine,
dentistry, veterinary medicine, optome-
try, podiatry (the so-called MODVOP
professions). Dramatic rises in the num-
ber of first-year students in medicine and
veterinary medicine, from less than 10%
of the entering class prior to 1970 to
more than 22% in 1974, reflect a very
significant change on the part of these
professions as well as on the part of the
women seeking entry. The trend is con-
tinuing so that even higher percentages
of women students will be recorded
before the end of this decade and, in a
few schools, 30% to 50% of the class are
women even now. Progress in the other
MODVOP schools is slower, but they
have clearly signalled the desire for more
women applicants and are engaged in
active recruiting, new image building and
even a degree of affirmative action in
admissions.

What has caused this remarkable
change? Several factors have been at work
simultaneously. First, the women’s move-
ment and its impact on both attitudes
and on legislation. Women now see them-

selves as victims of a socialization process
that has nothing to do with their capa-
bilities for success in typically male
professions. There has been a redefinition
of women’s expectations and of their
opportunities, by themselves and by
society. This has been significantly
abetted by several pieces of legislation:
the Public Health Service Act of 1971
and the Higher Education Act of 1972,
requiring equal treatment of men and
women in recruitment and admissions.

Second, there has been an organiza-
tional and economic change in medical
practice from the professional entrepre-
neurial model to the group and institu-
tional model with increasing federal
interest, support and control over the
health care delivery system in all its
aspects. Women benefit from this type
of change and the system benefits from
the inclusion of women. Finally, there
has been a reevaluation by students of
many aspects of their life style, in-
cluding the acceptance of more androgy-
nous roles in work, marriage and child-
rearing and a new set of values question-
ing the necessity of a single-minded all-
consuming dedication to professional
practice which has characterized the
MODVOP professions in the past. If you
take all of this and couple it with the
strong science orientation of college
students today and the still-available
job opportunities in the health field, you
can see why the number of pre-medical
students at Barnard has tripled in the
years between 1970 and 1976.

With the increase in numbers, there is
also an increase in the competitiveness of
the process. Medical school enrollments
have not kept up with the applicant pool
and in fact the situation has gotten
steadily worse since the early 1960’s.
Nationwide, an applicant pool of less
than two candidates per one place in
1960 has now become three to one.

So only one out of every three applicants
across the country is accepted for medical
school. Barnard’s acceptance rate is
closer to two out of three applicants.

twice as good as the national average. It
varies of course from year to year, with
a lot depending on the qualifications of
the applicants in a given year. These days,
it is hard to discourage women who
were told in their formative years that
medicine was open to them. The self-
selection which used to be so reliable for
women applicants is displaced by
dreams of new opportunities and the
glamor of the professions.

What does Barnard offer the pre-
medical student? Quite a bit. As a seven-
sister college affiliated with a major uni-
versity, Barnard represents in the public
eye cm institution noted for quality
teaching and scientific depth which is
made available to a group of carefully
selected and highly motivated students.
In addition, Barnard women have for
years been well represented in doctoral-
level health programs; we have a long tra-
dition of women who break barriers.
The urban setting and the fact that our
students are comfortable in it, having
chosen to live in New York City, in-
creases their credibility in a service
profession. Minority students coming
from Barnard tend to do considerably
better in admission to medical school
than their counterparts at less rigorous
institutions; the undergraduate school is
more important than scores and grades
per se.

In addition to the benefits of institu-
tional reputation, we offer Barnard
pre-meds some very specific services to
help them achieve their career goals.
Some of these are merely enlargements
of what you experienced as undergrad-
uates, but some are quite new. Perhaps
the biggest change is in the office of the
pre-professional advisor, now a full-time
administrative position rather than an
additional, non-released-time, faculty
responsibility. Given the greatly enlarged
number of pre-professional students— 25%
of each class going on to law or business
school or the health professions— plus as
many as 75 alumnae a year who are
applying for the first time or re-applying

to professional school— -it becomes clear
that this would be too considerable a
burden to impose on a member of the
teaching faculty.

For the pre-meds, the faculty in the
form of a six-member pre-medical com-
mittee does participate actively in the
advising, letter-writing and assessment
procedures. Decisions about how to
advise students, who will contribute
recommendations, who will take prime
responsibility for compiling the final
letter of recommendation, are made
collectively. All letters go out over the
signatures of the entire committee, not
one individual. It is remarkable how well
the faculty knows the students, even now
when we are dealing with at least fifty

undergraduate pre-meds a year, in classes
that number over a hundred students in
aU of the required courses. Because
several members of the faculty are
involved for each student, the most
favorable and accurate assessments are
assured.

The pre-professional office publishes
annual reports, available to all applicants
of the senior class, providing as much
factual information as possible about the
acceptances during the previous three-
year period. We see each applicant
several times during the application year,
helping her select schools on the basis of
interest, state residency, and past Bar-
nard experiences with individual schools.

This year we published a 66-page
handbook for students interested in the
health professions. In addition to the
usual description of the requirements

for each of the health professional pro-
grams and step-by-step procedures to be
followed, there are chapters on foreign
medical schools, alternatives to medicine,
a discussion of women and minorities
in medicine, a listing of schools to which
Barnard students gained entry in the
last three years and the credentials of
each accepted applicant. We also in-
cluded biographical sketches of a few
students who were accepted without
the traditional high credentials, to show
that the process is not purely mechanical
and thereby encourage a few students
who might otherwise give up too early.

An even more exciting project has
been tlie initiation and sponsorship of a
Women in Health Careers Society, which

is designed to focus on cooperative rather
than competitive efforts and to bring
together students who are interested in
the wide range of health careers rather
than only the pre-meds. The group has
invited public health people, nurse
practitioners and health policy analysts
to speak, in the hopes of broadening the
horizons of typical pre-meds, many of
whom are unaware of the social issues
involved in health care or the work of
their future teammates. This year, the
women in the group organized a New
MCAT Workshop designed for those who
cannot afford or who refuse to take a
commercial MCAT-preparation course.
Faculty members were invited to conduct
sessions on each of the subtopics covered
on the exam, tapes were made and placed
on reserve in the library for students to
borrow as they prepared for the exam.

For the past three years, the pre-
professional office has been conducting
an interview survey, trying to demystify
the interview procedures used by individ-
ual medical and dental (and other
MODVOP) schools, and, at the same
time to document the degree of sexism
in interviews. After each interview, a
student is requested to complete a form
that describes its content by category,
the name of the interviewer, age, sex,
how much time was spent on each of a
list of 20 or more types of questions,
whether the interviewer considered these
important, and his/her degree of friend-
liness or hostility or indifference to each
set of responses. This year, w'e enlarged
the questionnaire and asked students to
include sample questions and more details
about whether or not the interview was
“blind”— that is, conducted without the
reading of the student’s application—
whether it appeared to be a patterned
interview or whether it flowed from the
application or the student’s responses.
Ultimately we hope to use this informa-
tion as part of a more extensive study
of admissions procedures as they vary
from school to school. In the meantime,
the interview books are reassuring to
some very uneasy young women em-
barking on their first encounters,
preparing them for questions or situa-
tions they might not otherwise antici-
pate.

The last project I would like to men-
tion is one we are about to launch in
cooperation with the Barnard Women’s
Center. It is entitled “Casting the Net
Wider,” the title of President Mattfeld’s
talk to the Women’s Issues Luncheon in
November, 1976. The purpose of this
project is to recognize and benefit from
the vast network of Barnard students
and alumnae in the many phases of pre-
medical, medical and graduate medical
programs, all of whom can be helpful to
each other at their own levels and to
those about to come along. We will start
with a survey of needs and an announce-
ment of our purpose. Once the communi-
cation has been established, we hope
that groups will be established in many
regions, sharing the problems they face
as women in the health professions and
working on remedies, the very first being
the sense of unity and commonality.

These are truly exciting times to be
working at Barnard.

A Pre-Med Counseling Session

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 j 17

X i

omorrow's Alumnae Doctors

by Nora Lourie Percival ’36

Who are the Barnard women now
preparing for medical careers, who will be
living the lives this magazine may report
on twenty years from now? What are
they bringing to the world of medicine,
and what kind of doctors will they make?

Like their doctor sisters they are high-
ly motivated, socially concerned and
remarkably well qualified women, of
widely varying backgrounds, experience
and age, but with similar dedication to
the public good; women like;

MARY ROMAN ’74, who was a Rus-
sian major at Barnard, then returned as a
special student after graduation to do her
science requirements. While awaiting
medical school acceptance she worked in
environmental health research. Mary is
much involved in issues of social medicine
and the politics of health care. She is now
a second-year student at P & S.

JANICE PRIDE ’77, a biology major
who has just entered Harvard Medical
School. One of the outstanding Black
students in her class, Janice was this
year’s winner of the Lucy Moses Prize,
given each year to the pre-medical stu-
dent on financial aid who has done most
community service and maintained an
excellent academic record.

TRACY FLANAGAN ’77, a psychol-
ogy major and Phi Beta Kappa who is ap-
plying for Fall ’78 admission to medical
school. Tracy has been active as a mem-
ber of the women’s counseling project at
Columbia, and has done extensive abor-
tion research and counseling. She is also
involved in a medical ethics program at
Hastings Institute.

JANE DEWAR ’72, who is in her third
year at P & S. Jane dropped out of Bar-
nard in 1954, after three years, and re-
turned 16 years later as a pre-med.

CHERYL WARNER ’75, a biology
major now in her third year at Harvard
Medical School. Cheryl was married be-
fore she applied to medical school, and
she reversed the usual marriage/career
story, since her architect husband had
to find a job in the Boston area when
Cheryl was accepted at Harvard.

MINDY SEIDLIN ’73, a biology major
at Barnard, who is pursuing a challenging
MD-PhD program jointly offered by
Harvard and MIT.

In person and by mail a few members
of this growing pre-med contingent— this
year nearly 50 entered medical school-
expressed their feelings about the world
of medicine.

KIM SCHERMAN ’77 will be a De-
cember graduate applying for Fall ’78
admission; she is a religion major, who
explains her choice of a medical career
thus:

“My interest in medicine was gener-
ated by a summer experience in Mexico
that influenced me profoundly. After my
junior year in high school, I spent six
weeks working in a small village clinic in
the mountains of western Mexico. I
worked as a para-medic, helping to deliver
primary medical care to people from tiny
villages scattered throughout the sur-
rounding mountains.

“This experience made me realize that
medicine is a powerful instrument that
can be used to significantly improve the
quality of people’s lives in a very real
way. This realization was impressed upon
me with particular force in the context of
the poverty and hardship which sur-
rounded me in the village. That summer I
resolved to study medicine; it seemed for
me the most meaningful and useful way
to contribute in some way to the amelio-
ration of unnecessary suffering.

“My commitment has remained un-
changed since that summer five years ago.
I have returned to the clinic in Mexico
and have also worked with migrant work-
ers in California; these experiences have
reaffirmed my initial conviction. While
medical aid is needed in many countries,
in this country itself there remain many
people to whom adequate health services
are not as yet available. My experiences
have impressed upon me the urgent neces-
sity of providing such care for those who
have been neglected and, provided my
hopes to enter the medical profession are
realized, I plan to direct my energy to-
ward attaining this goal.’’

JANE FARHI ’77 is one of this year’s
three Alumnae Fellows and third-genera-
tion Barnard; she is the daughter of Carol
Ruskin Farhi ’44 and the granddaughter
of Frances Reder Ruskin ’19. A math ma-
jor, Jane has the highest average of all this
year’s pre-meds, a record made more re-
markable by the fact that she has put her-
self through College by working as a ma-
tron on a school bus for handicapped
children. Jane talked of her regret that
her early-morning and mid-afternoon
hours on the bus left her little time to
develop a sense of campus life. Also she
took a number of courses at General Stu-
dies and Columbia, where she found
working with the great names of science
“exciting but not intimidating.’’

Jane has planned to go into medicine
since she was four, inspired by a doctor-
grandfather. At 14 she was a Red Cross
volunteer in a hospital for paralytics. The
following year the family moved to Israel,
where J ane did her Army service in the
emergency room of an Army hospital,
staying on when the family returned to
the United States.

Her medical ambitions were discour-
aged by her college in Israel, but were
rekindled when, on a visit here, she was
able to transfer to Barnard. Completing
her pre-med course in 214 years with a
solid A record, she is now at Harvard
Medical School, looking forward to a
career in the rehabilitation field.

TOVA YELLIN ’76, a biology major
from Illinois, is concerned with the prob-
lems of women in her profession. I talked
with her at the end of her first year at
P & S, as she was looking forward to a
summer job at Hadassah Hospital in
Israel— her “last chance to range fcU"
afield,” since future summers will be
spent in medical assignments.

Though she has wanted to be a doctor
since the fourth grade, Tova once decided
to be a social worker instead, discouraged
by the prospect of the long training and
the lack of role models. But some volun-
tary service in high school days and a seri-
ous illness of her father’s crystallized her
medical ambitions, her desire for a career

of service to people in a more structured
system. So she entered Barnard commit-
ted to medicine.

Tova loved Barnard, but resented the
pre-med pressures that denied her time
for the many cultural pleasures of the
city. Careful scheduling made time for
some, and she managed to get in quite a
few electives. Now she is grateful for the
self-discipline demanded by Barnard’s
stringent standards; and the liberal arts re-
quirements have broadened her scope and
will enrich her life. She has also come to
value the supportive Barnard environment
—the small classes and sustaining relation-
ships with other women.

Seeking such nurturing at P & S, Tova
has been instrumental in starting a wo-
men’s group there. Unlike students from
co-ed schools, those from Barnard resent
male denigration and sexist lectures. A
delegate to the student-faculty advisory
committee, Tova realized the need for a
voice for women students. The new group
includes students and interns, and has
plans to take in nurses as well. They hope
to get many kinds of health care people
together to explore various questions of
concern to women.

Tova is concerned at seeing the early
idealism of most students giving way to
the prestige factor at medical school— a
pressure that produces some of the ten-
sions she feels can be minimized by the
women’s group in establishing a more
nurturing climate for women students.

Tova will probably go into family medi-
cine, where she can build lasting relation-
ships with her patients. She hopes for a
family life, and leans toward settling in
the sort of pleasant small-town environ-
ment she grew up in, though she loves the
stimulating life of the city as well.

Four years ago MARTHA KATZ ’71
wrote in this magazine about sailing on
the Clearwater to publicize Hudson River
pollution; now she is in her third year at
P & S. An energetic and socially con-
scious woman, she has explored many
work and life styles, and has found in
medicine the direction and the tools for
helping people that she sought.

Martha decided on medicine after try-
ing communal living, writing a cookbook
(High Protein Baking) and teaching folk
dancing, among a number of other en-
deavors. She came back to Barnard for
the pre-med courses she needed, and took

a master’s in nutrition at the same time.
Even in medical school she managed to
find time to do radio programming, write
articles and work with a political study
group examining health care.

But the third year brought time pres-
sures that left little room for these broad
interests. The many hours she had to
spend at hospitals during her eight spe-
cialty training periods demanded a single-
mindedness which Martha feels is detri-
mental to the perceptions of doctors. She
feels more in contact with the stuff of
life when her fingers are in many pies.

She is concerned too about what she
considers the lack of social consciousness
among her fellow students and teachers.
What she loves about medicine is the con-
tact with people; what makes her angry
about medical training is its insistence
that such contact has little or no part in a
medical career. She feels a socialization
factor at work that creates a concept of a
“good” doctor as an isolated individual in
an esoteric field, who uses his special
knowledge to establish a role of domi-
nance.

Articulate and impatient of pretense,
Martha has made many comments in her
journal about how the school stimulates
such attitudes. She notes that when she
submitted her proposed budget with an
application for financial aid she was told
that the budget was too skimpy, implying
that as a doctor she should get used to a
higher living standard. And the paper-
work was done for her by secretaries, sug-
gesting that doctors need not bother with

hack-work. She also resents the practice
of using a professional jargon to set off
the doctors from the laymen.

Martha writes that the distance be-
tween patient and doctor is very gradual-
ly lessened in medical school, from films
to observing in the amphitheatre to
watching autopsies to the final one-to-one
session with instructor and patient.
Though she sees no other way to learn
diagnosis and treatment techniques, she
is bothered by the instructor’s impersonal
discussion of the patient’s problems in his
presence, and other indications of a lack
of respect for him as a person.

This lack of empathy is undoubtedly
exacerbated, Martha believes, because
nearly all of the patients the students
work with are the poor in the clinics, usu-
ally black or hispanic, and generally medi-
cally ignorant. Seldom are their condi-
tions explained to them in their own
terms. And, since most of the medical
students are middle-class whites, they
tend to develop two sets of rules and be-
havior-private and clinic, white and
minority, well-to-do and poor. She notes
that the minority students have the
roughest time, though the prejuce is not
so much racial as due to a lack of com-
mon identification.

Martha is more aware of class than of
sex prejudice at her school, since most
women students are white and middle
class and have “bought into the medical
system” with ease. It is status that
pervades medical training— status usually
determined by knowledge. Rank and
uniforms command instant obedience
from subordinates. Students are trained
to assume doctor-patient roles, the doctor
in authority, the patient dependent.
There is never any talk of a meeting of
equals, one helping the other with his
skill. The role emphasized is one of com-
plete confidence and detachment from
the emotions of the situation.

In stressing the purity of medicine,
Martha feels, doctors fail to recognize
that much of medicine is experience and
much of diagnosis is perceptive intuition.
Deploring the loss of early idealism and
cynical lack of social consciousness and
compassion among her fellows, she thinks
her own need for interpersonal relation-
ships will probably lead her to a residency
in family medicine, where she can prac-
tice medicine as a dialogue rather than as
dictates from the lofty to the lowly.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 19

acing Tke Realities Of Medicine

by Mary Ann Lo Frumento ’77

Career choice is one of the most diffi-
cult and perplexing decisions young
adults must confront. With adolescence
lingering in the background, we are still a
bit insecure about our abilities and still
involved in carving our own unique
identities. Yet it is at this critical stage
that we are required to decide on a life
work. Medicine, especially, demands a
commitment by early sophomore year to
assure that all requirements are fulfilled
on time.

This timetable creates some problems.
For one thing, it is very easy to fall into
the pre-med system as a freshman with-
out having any real conception of what
medicine is all about. Most freshman pre-
meds, unless they have had some contact
with the medical world, have a fantasy,
media-perpetuated, image of the white-
coated hero who unselfishly assuages the
suffering of the sick. There is very little

. . . It is very easy to fall into the
pre-med system as a freshman
without having any real
conception of what medicine
is all about . . .

thought given to the problems which are
plaguing the medical world today.

Not only is a career choice made be-
fore the student has a chance to really
explore medicine or to examine other
choices but, once involved in the system
of required courses, it becomes ever more
difficult to question that first choice.
And if one does have the opportunity to
examine the situation late in a pre-med
career, the clash with reality can be very
painful.

Before describing my experiences in
just that sort of crisis. I’d like to examine
some of the reasons why pre-med is such
a popular first choice at Barnard, and
why it is so hard to challenge.

A pre-medical career, as everyone
knows, is not easy. It means harder clas-
ses, tougher competition, and more in-

tense pressure to achieve the coveted
goal: the acceptance letter. And there are
no guarantees along the road. Most of the
pre-meds at Barnard do have an interest
and aptitude in science and a genuine
concern for human life, and this is the
main motive. But there are reasons for
choosing medicine over research or teach-
ing or nursing. Being pre-med provides
some rather good solutions to problems
which plague most of us at this age.

First of all, it provides a present iden-
tity: “I am pre-med”; and a future one:

“I will be a doctor.” This enables you to
avoid exploring other possibilities, an
often frustrating experience. And since
doctors rank high on the social status lad-
der, you also assume some of this status
and receive much reinforcement from
parents (“My daughter the doctor!”),
relatives, and friends.

Along with status and identity comes a
sense of a meaningful purpose in life: “I
will heal the sick and alleviate suffering.”
(This purpose is often exaggerated.) Being
pre-med also provides a chance to achieve
a high goal, and many Barnard students
are, by definition, high achievers.

Another important factor is that being
pre-med means never having to say “I’m
unemployed,” the fear of so many stu-
dents brought into the world during the
Baby Boom of the fifties. The prospect of
financial security is comforting.

But medicine as a career choice is not
a panacea for all ills. As I said, there are

. . . I began to see doctors as
human beings with problems and
faults, capable of making errors
and of being insensitive . . .

no guarantees untU you receive that ac-
ceptance letter and pre-meds, as a result,
are often filled with anxiety about their
chances. You can fail at any point, and
should this happen you must face reas-
sembling your choices and reevaluating

your goals. Goodbye guaranteed status,
identity, and security!

But for some, failure is a secretly-
welcomed relief. At this point, some ex-

. . . Suddenly at the beginning
of my junior year I was filled
with doubts . . .

meds recdize that they really didn’t want
to have to face the hard hours, the suffer-
ing, and the malpractice cases that come
with being doctors. But even for those
“lucky” enough to know by their junior
or senior year that they will probably be
accepted, there are problems to face.

I faced this crisis in my junior year. I
had come to Barnard from Bronx High
School of Science and so had a strong
science background. But I also loved
social studies and after a summer of
watching Watergate hearings I was deter-
mined to become a lawyer.

Unable to find a job during second
semester, I became a hospital volunteer
and worked as a translator in a pediatric
clinic. I also developed a real interest in
the anatomy and physiology section of
Introductory Biology. By the end of
freshman year I had decided to become
pre-med. Interestingly enough, so had
eight of my ten closest friends.

I worked and studied hard all year and
in the summers on my pre-med courses. I
also worked long hours in the clinic even
after I found more financially rewarding
work. After a whole year, I really felt like
a part of the team. I welcomed the sense
of belonging and purpose, the identity
and attention. I was sure this was the
career for me.

But volunteer work is more than just
learning about diseases. The real educa-
tion is in the realities of the medical pro-
fession. I was forced to literally face the
blood and guts of medicine in the Emer-
gency Room, and I fainted the first time
my hands were covered with blood. I was
also forced to confront death and dying.

and I cried when I just went by the pedi-
atric intensive-care unit. I tried to under-
stand the protective shell which allowed
the doctors and nurses to function objec-
tively, but at first I was disgusted by
their callousness.

I had a chance to study doctors, nurs-
es, administrators, patients, and the social
structure governing them. Many of these
people were wonderful. They were warm,
sensitive, and encouraging, and always
had time to explain some complicated
procedure or regulation. One woman doc-
tor who shared my first name and nation-
al background took a real interest in me
and let me work with all her patients. She
talked to me often about the joy and sat-
isfaction she felt in her work, and how
happy I would be as a doctor.

But the happy and satisfied doctors
were the exception among the interns and
residents I was working with. By the sec-
ond year, the realities of medicine had

. . . Breaking out of the pre-med
shell is not easy. I was suddenly
without that guarantee of iden-
tity, status, security . . .

begun to crack the glorified facade. I be-
gan to see doctors as human beings with
problems and faults, capable of making
errors and of being insensitive to the
needs of their patients. Most were over-
worked and overloaded with caffeine.
There were rumors of alcoholism, drugs,
divorces, and affairs. One woman doctor
warned me that I would never have a hap-
py marriage because of the pressure. The
message was clear: get out before it’s too
late.

Suddenly at the beginning of my jun-
ior year I was filled with doubts. I began
to wonder what I was getting into. I was
making a commitment for the rest of my

life for a career that no longer seemed so
appealing. The reality had replaced the
fantasy.

I began to look at other options. I was
organizing Spring Festival that year and I
thought 1 might enjoy a career in pro-
gramming or administration. 1 was a
psychology major and that also presented
possibilities. I spent an agonizing winter
break trying to sort things out. Needing
time to think, I dropped all my pre-med
courses. I thought I had come to a deci-
sion by mid-semester when I decided to
pursue a career in psychology.

But breaking out of the pre-med shell
is not easy. I was suddenly without that
guarantee of identity, status^ security and
a meaningful purpose for my life. There
was much pressure from my parents and
pre-med advisor. No one could under-
stand why I was throwing away my
chance at such a coveted career.

The relief I had first felt had faded by
mid-summer when I was forced to reeval-
uate my reevaluation. Esther Rowland,
my pre-med advisor, finally sat me down
and made me face the issue. I was throw-
ing away a chance at a wonderful, excit-
ing, fulfilling career that would not neces-
sarily prevent me from doing other things
or from having a family. I had seen too
much of the bad side. Talk to older doc-
tors, not so many interns. It is hard, but I
could handle it. Her words made sense. I

. . . I began to have more faith
in my ability to survive . . .

was going to have to adjust to the realities
of medicine.

I began to remember my first love of
science when I was a child and how I en-
joyed my science courses in high school
and college. I remembered how good I
felt working in the clinic. I began to have
more faith in my abilities to survive.

A year later, I decided to attend the
University of Pennsylvania medical school
because it has a very innovative and hu-
manistic curriculum designed to train the
well-rounded physician in a low-pressure
atmosphere.

I’m glad that I faced the crisis of being
pfe-med before I entered medical school.
Now I have more confidence that I am
making the right decision, and I can con-
centrate more on being a good physician.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 21

reating A Professional identity

by Roberta Sackin Batt ’62

Reprinted with permission from the American
Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. XXXII, 2

Even after graduating from medical
school I could not believe that 1 was a
real doctor. I had lived with this goal for
so many years that it took more than a
ceremony to make it real to me. But a
few months after receiving my M.D. the
moment of realization came. My mother
and I were shopping and she met some
friends. I was introduced: “My daughter,
the doctor ...” I had made it ... I was
real ... In spite of all the statistical odds
against women becoming physicians, and
the doubts I was continually confronted
with, I had gotten through. . .

Everyone has heard stories of “My
son, the doctor.” Boys that show an
early interest in medicine are usually
enthusiastically encouraged, financially
and emotionally. Girls with similar ideas,
however, are regarded with disbelief if
not with downright suspicion. (What’s
wrong? Doesn’t she want to get married
and have a family? Is she a lesbian or
something?)

My own experience was typical. When
I was a senior in high school I began
thinking about becoming a doctor. My
parents became rather “concerned” and
took me to our family physician. He was

. . . I was surrounded by teachers
and advisors that were supportive
and encouraging, and believed
that women had a right to be-
come all that they were capable
of becoming . . .

also “concerned,” in spite of my excel-
lent grades, interests in biology, and
desire to help others. He suggested that
I look into occupational or recreational
therapy. He elaborated on the sacrifices
and the dedication and the extreme
hardships on women who went into
medicine. I was resigned. It was too
much in those years for me to assert

myself against my family doctor and my
parents, and so I gave up this “fantasy.”

I went to college the next year to be-
come a teacher. Fortunately I had been
given a scholarship to Barnard College,
and I was surrounded by teachers and
advisors that were supportive and en-
couraging, and believed that women had
a right to become all that they were capa-
ble of becoming. My thoughts of becom-
ing a physician were rekindled. . .

Many women never consider medicine
or any profession because they don’t
get any encouragement or support for
that choice. Not only is support lacking—
there is usually dissuasion and pressure
to go into other fields such as nursing,
social work, et cetera. Now there is
nothing basically wrong with being a
social worker or a nurse— except that
it isn’t being a physician! Nurses are by
and large subordinate to physicians and
they are very aware of this. Most would
change places with a physician any day.

But even more than encouragement
and support are necessary for motiva-
tion and inspiration. Potential women
physicians need models to emulate. As
social science has it, professionals are
“socialized” into their roles. This pro-
cess is, as they say, “caught,” not
“taught.” It occurs outside the class-
room and is rarely explicit. It is more
the learning of obligations, responsibili-
ties, values and expectations of profes-
sional life. This process is crucial to
becoming a physician and can only be
acquired within the medical community.
To the extent that this community has
blind spots and hang-ups embodied in it,
it becomes very difficult for women to
“catch” many aspects of their profes-
sional roles, without at the same time
acquiring the prejudices and biases of
the community. These hang-ups, while
not unique to medicine, are especially
prevalent here, perhaps because of
medicine’s male dominance. These preju-
dices strongly interfere with becoming a
healthy woman physician. . .

In medicine women often seek out
other women, even if it is just to know

that they are not alone. I recall that in
medical school, even though there was
almost no mixing of classes, I knew by
name and sight all of the other female
mediccil students. While I did not often
downgrade the competence of women
physicians I might come into contact
with, I did tend to judge them too rigidly

... In medicine women often
seek out other women, even
if it is just to know that they
are not alone . . .

and demand of them unreasonable stan-
dards of perfection and excellence,
whereas I did not do so of men. Fre-
quently I was also not able to feel sym-
pathetically towards them. In the
past few years I have become acquainted
with women, both professional and non-
professional, who relate similar ambiva-
lent experiences, and I have reevaluated
and changed my own behavior and atti-
tudes in the light of this. As a psychiatric
resident, I saw the need for women
physicians as supervisors. This need is as
great in other medical specialties as in
psychiatry. Unfortunately the administra-
tors in all medical specialties, most of
whom are men, are not sufficiently aware
of the necessity for women residents to
get support and guidance from women
supervisors. Not only is the problem at
the administrative level, but many women
physicians themselves remain prejudiced
toward other women physicians. Older
physicians, even while they are used as
models, are often not yet aware of their
own prejudices toward other women,
and supervisory sessions with these
women often become tense and competi-
tive rather than mutually explorative and
supportive. Women physicians, whether
young or old, who remain suspicious of
other women physicians, deny themselves
and each other the encouragement they
need and could receive. Senior physicians
must be aware of the fact that they are

models— inevitably so. It was seldom that
a female medical student did not know
and greet me during my residency, even
though I wore street clothes, unlike mem-
bers of other medical specialties, and even
though there was no formal contact with
me in the hospital.

. . . The fact that medicine is a male-
dominated field means that many of its
assumptions, values and expectations
are oriented to a masculine viewpoint.
Thus the image of the ideal physician
is more in the terms of the male phy-
sician than the female one. Traditionally,
in our society, being a physician has
entailed a life-long commitment and
involvement in medicine and has
demanded of physicians selfless dedica-
tion to others. This has been difficult
for even the most committed of men,
but they have usually been able to
model themselves in this image without
sacrificing marriage and family. Generally
physicians’ wives have been willing to
shoulder alone the day-to-day problems
of the marriage and family, and have
thus enabled their husbands to devote
the time demanded by their profession.
For women physicians this possibility
has not existed. If they are married their

. . . Senior physicians must be
aware of the fact that they are
models — inevitably so . . .

husbmds are not likely to assume alone
the responsibilities of the marriage and
ftunily, and so the wife often has to
give up her career or else forego marriage
and family for the sake of her career.
With its male outlook the medical pro-
fession itself has not seen any need to
adjust or accomodate its expectations
of the ideal physician to the multiple
and differing commitments women bring
to a medical career.

Women by and large have not made
known the dilemma they face. In the
early part of this century, especially,
women who chose to go into medicine
saw their choice as one between medi-
cine or marriage and family. In these
early years there were too few women
in medicine to challenge the existing
ideals, and to voice the dilemma women
felt in following these ideals. Even if

there were more women, it is doubtful
that objections would have carried since
medicine was so male oriented. Another
factor led women to remain silent and
accept the medical community’s ideal
of a physician. Women felt subordinate
and inferior to men. They never felt
totally accepted by others. For women,
entering a profession held a chance for
acceptance of themselves as worthwhile.
To insure respect by their male counter-
parts, women physicians not only fol-
lowed the ideals male physicians had
for themselves, but they placed upon
themselves even greater standards of
dedication and achievement. For the
majority of women this meant sacri-
fice of any other goals and activities
which they might have pursued beyond
their professional careers. A recent
study of Radcliffe College alumnae who
had entered medicine in the early years
of this century, describes these women
as “typified by a singleness of purpose,
a kind of doggedness or blind determi-
nation.’’ Nothing else mattered to them
except to succeed as physicians. Their
entire identity and their entire self-
worth was wrapped up with their pro-
fessional roles. The sacrifice of marriage,
family and friends and the consequent
loneliness and isolation these women
felt, was the price they paid for ac-
ceptamce in a society where acceptance
of women as equal to men was almost
non-existent.

The male orientation in medicine has
also influenced the ideal of sexuality
that women physicians have held for
themselves. This is especially true for
women who entered medicine early in
this century. Women who chose for
themselves a profession such as medi-
cine usually had already rejected the
societal ideal of feminine sexuality. This
was (and still is to a large degree) the
stereotype of woman as mindless, empty-
headed sex-object. Such a woman had
no interest in or wish for involvement
beyond the nturow confines of home
and family. Society unfortunately had
no other image of feminine sexuality,
and since many women physicians
rejected this image, they looked within
the medical profession for their sexual
identity. The ideal of sexuality within
the medical profession has traditionally
been seen in terms of masculine behavior.
Thus these women modeled themselves

in terms of this image. They came more
and more to act the part of the supposed
societal ideal of masculinity— aggressive,
unemotional, “tough-minded.” Some
women were often more “masculine”
than men were. . .

. . . With the problems of the
world as great as they are, it is
no longer possible for anyone
to live a vicarious existence . .

In medicine many women physicians
do distrust and doubt their feminine
sexuality. Rather than attempt the
difficult task of building an image of
themselves from a feminine perspective,
some of them resolve their doubts by
denying all differences that exist be-
tween masculine and feminine perspec-
tives and behavior. They create an image
of themselves as asexual or sexless. The
Freudian framework in American psy-
chiatric circles encourages women, in
some respects, to become sexless. There
is no healthy model of femininity within
Freudian analysis. Women, by definition,
are biological and psychological inferiors.
The worst thing a woman can do, how-
ever, is to try to emulate a man. Women
who emulate men can never achieve the
male superior status, either biologically
or psychologically, and they are destined
to turn into “castrating females,” jealous
and bitter about the male’s superiority
over them and forever frustrated in all
attempts to shake off their inferior status
as women (since it is something they
are born with and cannot control).
Women physicians are introduced early
to the Freudian concept and model of
human sexuality. Rather than risk the
possibility of becoming a “castrating
female,” and having no healthy image of
femininity within the Freudian frame-
work, they build an image of themselves
as sexless. They do not nourish any
masculine or feminine characteristics
within themselves. They deny as much
as they can to themselves and to others
that they are sexual and sensuous beings
(in the largest sense of these terms). The
end result is a person who is depressive,
apathetic and dull. The fullness, richness
and subtlety of human emotions and

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 23

sensuality can be enjoyed by a woman
(or a man for that matter) only if she is
accepting of her own feminine sexuality,
and only if she is able to experience
herself as a total being. The tragedy of
such women and men who deny their
own sexuality is that they often have
never allowed themselves to experience
any quality of sensuousness. They are
thus not even aware of these potentiali-
ties within themselves. . .

I began this essay with my mother’s
introduction of me as “my daughter,
the doctor.” Pauline Bart has written an
article in a recent issue of Trans-Action
entitled “Mother Portnoy’s Complaints.”
She writes about the Jewish mother but
she acknowledges that you don’t have
to be Jewish to be a Jewish mother. This
type of mother is all too frequent in our
society. She exists solely for her children
and sees herself in only one role, that of
mother. She lives her life through her
children. She is willing to make years of
sacrifice to help her children if she feels
that there is a possibility of a payoff.
“My son, the doctor” is one of the best
payoffs. “My daughter, the doctor” runs
a close second. With the new awareness
that women are acquiring about them-
selves, they are coming to realize that
they must be more than just housewives
and mothers. They must become indi-
viduals in their own right, living their own
lives rather than living their lives through
someone else. Each woman professional
demonstrates that a woman can be more
and must be more. With the problems of
the world as great as they are, it is no
longer possible for anyone to live a vica-
rious existence. The perspective women
bring to a situation may not be the an-
swer, but it will in many instances pro-
vide part of the answer. Women must be
involved intimately, as individuals, in the
larger society which traditionally has
been seen as the domain of men, just as
men must become involved intimately
within the family and home which has
traditionally been the woman’s domain.
Both must work together in all aspects of
life to understand the past and present
and to shape and change the future for
all of us.

Roberta Sackin Batt was fourth in her
class at Temple Medical School in 1966.
She is in private psychiatric practice in
Ithaca, and also serves as consultant for
the Cortland County Mental Health Clinic.

PEDIATRICIAN CHANGES HATS

Virginia Haggerty ’4 7
NYU Medical School ’51
Pediatrics

“If Barnard is collecting statistics,”
writes Virginia Haggerty, “mine will
confuse the computer since I am now
on my second career ... I was in prac-
tice for 18 years, and now I work in a
hospital-based clinic ....

“Leaving private practice in 1972 to
take a fellowship at Albert Einstein
College of Medicine (on Care of the
Handicapped Child) was an interesting
experience in itself, since I was moving
back almost 20 years in my career. . .

I had a lot to get used to. But it was
great— I learned an enormous amount
exploring a very specialized field, and
also being involved again in an academic
area. I consider myself very fortunate . . .
very few people are able to ‘take off’
two years and move in another direction.

“After I finished my fellowship, I
stayed at Einstein for a while, and then
in 1975 came to Brookdale Hospital in
Brooklyn as Director of the Develop-
mental Disabilities Center. We are a very
busy clinic serving an area with a popu-
lation of half a million. More than half
of our children are from poverty
areas .... We see children with mental
disorders and related problems .... We
are a multidisciplinary center with
pediatricians, psychologists, speech thera-
pists, social workers, a nurse and a psychi-
atrist, as well as our therapists for the
cerebral palsy program. In addition
we have a pre-school program for 50
children with a teaching staff of 7 ... .
The situation in the New York City
schools is terrible and we have to cope
with that also. Our clinic is mostly a diag-
nostic service with some counseling,
speech therapy and our school as our
therapeutic effort. We are seeing about
500 children a year for evaluation.

“My own work is most interesting
since I function as a pediatrician as well
as the director . . . .” Virginia Haggerty
also finds time to serve as assistant
professor of clinical pediatrics at NYU
College of Medicine and as Medical
Reviewer for Neuromuscular Diseases
for the New York City Department
of Health.

A SHARED CAREER

Dorothy Swern Federman ’68
U of Penn Medical School ’71
Family Practice

Dorothy Federman and her husband
have found in the new pattern of a shared
group practice the solution to many of
the problems of coordinating family and
career demands. After general practice in
Alberta and a year and a half of European
travel— working in English hospitals as
finances dictated— they returned to the
States in 1975 to await their first child
and choose a community to settle in.

In Saranac Lake, NY, they found “the
opportunity to share one job in a group
of five other physicians (four internists
and one family practitioner). I am the
only woman physician in this town of
7,000 ... a referral center for a popula-
tion of 50,000 and radius of 50 miles,
able to support a 100-bed hospital and
over 20 physicians with the stimulation
which comes with that situation. Sharing
the responsibilities of one physician

. . .1 never felt that my desire to
be a doctor as well as a wife and
mother was unnatural. Perhaps
this unselfconscious confidence
. . . was the important thing . . .

in a group of six enables us to maintain
separate practices but more importantly
enables us to live our lives without
imposing on others— for example, my
maternity leave means my husband fills
in for me . . . providing continuity.”

The Federmans were awaiting the
birth of their second child when she
wrote us last March. Since then family
pressures have increased and her feelings
of slipping behind in the area of acute
medicine have intensified. But she is try-
ing hard to strike a balance, aware “how
time-consuming children are” and that
sometimes medical activities offer a
relaxing break from babies, too! . . .

“My husband assumes the responsi-
bility of night care and weekend call as
my practice becomes characterized more
by non-acute medicine, pediatrics, new-
born care and gynecology. The patients
accept us with enthusiasm and so have
our partners. Together we work 60-70
hours a week but feel we see each other
quite a bit at work and at home” where
one is usually at home with the family
while the other is working. A husband
“oriented around home, children and
kitchen” has certainly helped create
this satisfying life style. “Being in the
same area of medicine has made it pos-
sible to share responsibilities though
currently he spends more time in medi-
cine and I more at home.

“I don’t think I can attribute specifics
of my present situation to Barnard,”
where she majored in philosophy. “I
never felt that my desire to be a doctor
as well as wife and mother was unnatural.
Perhaps this unselfconscious confidence
in women was the important thing.”

THE NECESSARY HABIT
(OF WORKING LATE)

Ginette Girardey Raimbault '43
Columbia P & S ’45
Faculte Medicine ’45
Psychoanalysis /obstetrics &
gynecology

In the mid-sixties, when the alumnae
magazine last reported on Ginette Raim-
bault’s medical career in Paris, she was

already distinguishing herself in two
separate fields. “Besides her private prac-
tice with children and adults, she works
in a children’s hospital, where she does
research in psychosomatics, and in
another hospital where she is in the
gynecology-obstetrics department, train-
ing women for natural childbirth, and
runs what is called a consultation de
psychosomatique. This hospital work,
says Dr. Raimbault, takes up all her
mornings. Her private clientele takes all
her afternoons, and she has acquired
what she calls the ‘unfortunate but
necessary habit’ of working very late in
the evenings, as she is interested in other
fields— all related to psychology— and
wants to keep up in them. For example,
she has been appointed ... (as a result of)
research for the World Health Organiza-
tion) to train French social workers in
case work.

“Her husband is also a doctor-psycho-
analyst and they have been working
together on a program of psychological
training for general practitioners.”

A MISSIONARY FOR MEDICINE

Margaret Schaffner Tenbrinck ’32
NYU Medical School ’39
Pediatrics

When Margaret Tenbrinck was intern-
ing at Bellevue, she planned her baby’s
birth for April so that she could return
that summer to complete her internship.
Such organization and fortitude seems to
have been typical of her whole career, an
account of which appeared in the Metro-
politan Life Insurance Company maga-
zine on the occasion of her retirement
from the company, and again last year
when her second retirement, from the
Child Evaluation Center in Phoenix,
Arizona, took place.

“Dr. Margairet Tenbrinck’s retirement
has been so busy that she has little time
to think of retiring.

“The former Associate Medical Direc-
tor in the home office has a schedule as
hectic as it was during her career at
Metropolitan. Her morning begins at
7:30, when she drives to the Child
Evaluation Center in Phoenix, Ariz.,

where she is director and pediatrician.
Since 1972 she has spent her time in
administering to the affairs of the center,
which works with mentally retarded
children.

. . . Her mission to improve the
medical care for the needy in
different parts of the world took
her to Lambarene . . .

“ ‘When I left Metropolitan,’ she said,
‘I applied for my license in Arizona with
hopes of opening my own private prac-
tice. Then, through a friend, I hecu-d
about the position at the center and
called. To my surprise, I was practically
hired over the phone.

“ ‘I’ve always loved working with
people, and the welfare of children is
most important to me. I examine over
400 children a year now at the center. We
try to discern the mental abilities of
the children and how best to help them
and their parents. One of my biggest
concerns and something we stress to our
staff is that if Helen Keller came here as
a child today, would we recognize her
potential? We have to be careful not to
make a mistake,’ said Dr. Tenbrinck.

“The doctor’s warmth and sprightly
character are evident in her conversation.
‘We’ve had to fight a lot to get grants
for the center and my constant reminder
is that we are here to help children . . . .’

“Although the center keeps her busy,
she still has time to entertain friends
from Metropolitan, acquaintances from
her travels and some of the Apache
Indians that she befriended when she
spent her vacation in 1966 in White-
river, Ariz., working on their reservation.

“. . . On retiring from the center . . .
she and her husband, Eduard, a retired
chief internal auditor for Cerro Corpora-
tion, are hoping to embark on a three-
month cruise to the Orient on a freighter.

“ ‘We’ve always loved to travel and
visit our friends throughout the world,’
she said.

“Dr. Tenbrinck has always been in-
volved with people and her travels have
been* many. In 1961 her mission to im-
prove the medical care for the needy in
different parts of the world took her to
Lambarene, Gabon, in West Central Afr-

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 25

SURGICAL INTERN

ca. Here she worked with the late Dr.
Albert Schweitzer in his forest hospi-
tal. She later recorded her impressions
of the trip for the Journal of the Amer-
ican Medical Women’s Association.

“Her manuscript brought her to the
immediate attention of Dr. Theodor
Binder who invited Dr. Tenbrinck to visit
the Amazon jungle. She accepted in 1963
and worked with him in Pucallpa, Peru.

“The following year she went back
to Lambarene to work with Schweitzer.
In 1965 she decided to stay in the United
States for her vacation and visited Dr.
Gaine Cannon, founder of the Albert
Schweitzer Memorial Hospital in Balsam
Grove, N. C. Here she spent her time in
the rugged Great Smoky Mountains
making house calls with the doctor.

“In 1966 she worked with Apache
Indians and their malnutrition problems.
Her next stop was East Jerusalem in 1968
where she assisted at the Spafford
Children’s Hospital.

“In 1970 she was back in the United
States to help the South Phoenix, Ariz.,
Community Medical Center, a clinic in
the black ghetto area. She arranged for
contributions to be made monthly by
the American Women’s Hospital Service.
The project receives medical supplies and
clothing from Metropolitan’s St. George
Association.

“It’s hard to believe that this woman
could have accomplished so much and be
so humble about it. ‘Oh, I just enjoy
helping people,’ she says.

“The American Women’s Hospital
Service has honored Dr. Tenbrinck by
presenting her with the second Esther
Pohl Lovejoy Award. This award is a
tribute to the late Dr. Lovejoy, who
guided the A. W. H. S. for almost 50
years, and is given to a woman physician
who sets an outstanding example in
international involvement.

“Today Dr. Tenbrinck continues her
humanitarian work. The multidisciplinary
center in Phoenix is striving to handle the
problems of mentally retarded children
and Dr. Tenbrinck has written several
papers on the subject for medical jour-
nals. Her home is constantly open to visi-
tors and she still manages to find time to
spend with her husband, their two
daughters and their families.

“Does Dr. Tenbrinck have plans to
relax during her cruise? ‘Well, we hope to
be able to visit some hospitals in different

ports we stop in. I also would like to go
back to Lambarene, and there are so
many other places we have to go to yet.
I just can’t afford to get tired.’ ’’

Phyllis Mann Wright ’41
Cornell Medical Center ’45
Pediatrics and Public Health

“The opportunities to use my educa-
tion have been many and varied. After
my marriage I chose to work part time
and my career was usually secondary to
that of my husband, who was a full-
time member of the UCLA medical
faculty. Wherever we lived in our travels
all over the world there was always
something interesting and challenging
for me to do. . . .

“Now since his untimely death I am
able to support myself and the children
in an interesting position as Chief of the
Crippled Children Branch for the State
of Hawaii (Department of Health).’’

For Phyllis Wright, the decision to
take positions at one-half or three-
fourths time enabled her to spend more
time with her children, but by no means
compromised her professional life. “It
has been rewarding for me to work part
time in a number of fields related to
medicine which did not involve the
demands of private practice. I have
done research (Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission in Nagasaki), taught medical
students and paura-medical personnel,
worked in clinics, and done a good deal
of medical writing as well as writing
for lay magazines. (She was Medical
Editor of the Ladies Home Journal for
four years.) I have also been the medical
technical advisor for the Dr. Kildare T’V
program. So many possibilities other
than practice.”

Beryl Benac err af -Libby ’71
Harvard Medical School ’76
Surgery

“I am now a surgical intern at the
Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston,”
writes Beryl, “the third female intern in
surgery in the history of this hospital.

“Having a father who is an MD (Chair-
man of the department of pathology at
Harvard Medical School), I have always
wanted to become a doctor. . . . While I
was at Barnard, I took all the courses I
could find in biology and chemistry. . . .
In fact, I became so interested in some
problems in biology that during my last
year at Barnard, I thought that maybe I
should be going into research instead of
medicine. So I delayed applying to med-
ical school and decided to combine two
of my dreams: spend a year in Rome
after graduation (I am fluent in Italian)
and work in one of the best Italicm re-
secU"ch laboratories. I enjoyed my year in
Rome tremendously, but I quickly rea-
lized that what I really was interested in
was medicine. So I came back to the U.S.
to enter medical school. . . .

“Soon cifter I entered the clinical
world, I became fascinated by surgery. . .
So I was very happy to be accepted to the
surgical program of the Peter Bent Brig-
ham Hospital as an intern. Also, during
my last year in medical school, I married
Dr. Peter Libby (an internist), who is
doing research at Harvard Medical School.

“Surgery is a great field, but very
demanding. I start every morning at
5 a.m., am on duty every other night,
and every week, I am on duty 2 nights
and 3 days in a row. (For instance,
every other weekend, I start at 5 a.m.
on Saturday and work without stop
until Monday evening.) It does not leave
much time for outside life and I am
lucky to have a husband who is under-
standing and approves of my career.”

DOCTORING BELOW ZERO

A TEAM IN FAMILY SERVICE

. . . The perennial question of
home and children vs. career
wdU never be solved, just juggled
around . . .

A PART-TIME SOLUTION

Helen Dym Stein ’51
Downstate Medical School ’55
Psychiatry

Helen Stein married a dentist and had
two boys while stdl in Downstate Medical
College, and a third son after her year of
internship, without interrupting her
studies. While the children were small, she
did part-time group practice, and only
later was able to study and be certified by
the American Board of Psychiatry and
Neurology. She was a part-time psychia-
trist at Barnard from 1966 to 1970, while
on the teaching staff at Cornell Medical
School. Now an assistant clinical profes-
sor of psychiatry at the U of California
School of Medicine at San Francisco, Dr.
Stein helped to plan the curriculum for a
new facility for the training of residents
in psychiatry, and wrote the course
descriptions for the new program.

Medicine has rubbed off on the
family as well. Her oldest son is in his
third year at Downstate and has just
married a Barnard graduate studying at
New York Medical College. Her youngest
son will start P & S in the fall. (The
middle son is a fellow in computer
science and a lecturer in mathematics
at NYU.)

She writes “I still do not advise having
children during school and residency
unless you want someone else to raise
them and contribute to their character.
Part-time work is the best combination
with child rearing. Medicine is ever more
difficult and demanding, and doctors
cire no longer so well appreciated. The
perennial question of home and children
vs. career will never be solved, just juggled
around, and many women today will opt
not to have children. Those who do the
combination find ingenious ways and, I
do think, have interesting children.”

Frances Adams Olsen ’38
Woman’s Medical College of Pa ’56
Rural Family Practice

“I think the fact that I was able to
get into medical school at all, after 14
years out of school, is testimony to the
quality of the Barnard education.” For
Dr. Frances Olsen, the wait was worth it.

“Since 1958,” she writes, “I have
been doing general practice (or as it is
now called, ‘family practice,’) in a rural
area in Vermont. East Corinth, a most
photographed village, is 26 miles from the
hospital where I have privileges. At the
present time the nearest other doctor is
20 miles away .... My practice has
included obstetrics. Therefore I have
made many nighttime trips to the hos-
pital in weather 20-30 degrees below
zero, and in snow and ice storms. Since
I am so far from other medical care,
my practice includes a fair amount of
emergencies, which in other areas would
go to the nearest emergency room.

... I have made many nighttime
trips to the hospital [26 miles]
in snow and ice storms . . .

“My husband is not a doctor, but has
been most helpful to my practice in
many ways,” she says. In the period
between Barnard and medical school,
the Olsens had four children. “We com-
bined my career and family by eliminat-
ing most other activities. Vacations and
holidays were family affairs. Except
when I was unavoidably on duty, the
family had breakfast and dinner to-
gether. My husband was always at home
evenings and weekends to supervise
the children.

“This type of practice involves being
on constant call ... I would not rec-
ommend it to anyone with young
children. Mine were all teenagers when I
went into practice.

“A rural practice such as this means
less money, less prestige, and practically
no free time, but offers many other
satisfactions. It is a busy, but never
boring life.”

Nancy Lee Reis Greenfield ’58
SUNY-Downstate ’62
Child psychiatry

“Life has been really exciting and
gratifying for me,” says Nancy Greenfield
who works with her husband Mel, a fami-
ly counselor, at Variety Children’s
Hospital in Coral Gables, FL, where she
is chief of psychiatry and he administra-
tor for psychiatry.

With complementary degrees, the
Greenfields find working as a team— “He
sees the parents, I the children”— exhila-
rating. In 1969 they organized the 60-bed
child and adolescent in-patient psychi-
atric facility at Variety which they run.
“For both of us,” she says, “this has
probably been the second most gratify-
ing experience of our lives. Until we
opened these units there was no adequate
facility for treating children and adoles-
cents at the hospital.” And their working
together, she adds, “makes the unbeliev-
ably long hours we must work more
acceptable.”

The Greenfields have four children
ranging in age from lIVi to 2. Despite
their arduous schedules, the family
somehow manage to find time to enjoy
the delights of the good life in Florida.
“Living on the water with a boat in our
backyard makes us feel we’re on a per-
petual vacation.”

How does Dr. Greenfield fit all the
pieces together? “My marriage and
family always come first and as a result
my husband and children cooperate and
participate in helping me meet the
demands of my medical career.” The
key, she advises, is to “be realistic in
selecting a husband” and make sure you
choose a man who’s ‘empathetic, sup-
portive and considerate.’ .... Our
marriage is such that we both consider
the other’s career as ‘ours.’ ” Dr. Green-
field also believes that parenting has
enhanced her professional capabilities.
“My children have provided for me a

. . . Working as a team is
exhilarating — “He sees the
parents, I the children” . . .

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 27

level of ‘first-hand understanding’ and
practicality that no training could have
provided! .... I firmly believe in the
traditional, nurturant, maternal female
role and feel medicine is an excellent
field to utilize all of these qualities.”

THAT “GLORIOUS
THIRD YEAR”

Muriel Chevious Kowlessar ’47
Columbia P & S ’51
Pediatrics

A young intern’s account of her
medical training, found in a 1952 alum-
nae magazine, makes delightful reading a
quarter of a century later. Muriel Che-
vious wrote that her interest in people
sent her into medicine. She found the
first year “unbearably dull .... So many
hours were spent peering through a
microscope, that I almost despaired of
ever seeing a patient.”

But each year brought her closer to it:
the “glorious third year, when you were
permitted on the ward . . .” and the
fourth year, when she could finally
“work up” a patient and try her skill
at making diagnoses and recommenda-
tions. Writing from the new perspective
of an intern, Muriel realized that “in
many ways, I know I’ve just begun to
learn medicine . . . .” Yet she resented
the total time the commitment required.
“A physician must know medicine well,
but . . . must he not be acquainted
with the culture, psychology and
economics of his patient in order to
really understand?”

Now an associate professor of pedi-
atrics at the Medical College of Pennsyl-
vania and director of Pediatric Group
(outpatient) Services, Muriel Kowlessar
specializes in pediatric endocrinology and
is the author of a number of publications.
She shares an interest in music with her
radiologist husband and their young
daughter, a talented singer, but finds
that professional demands still limit
her time to participate in life as broadly
as she’d like to. Dr. Kowlessar writes
that compromise is the key to combining
a medical career and marriage— as is a
supportive husband.

FROM OUTER TO INNER SPACE

Myra Drickman ’62
NYU School of Medicine ’76
Diagnostic radiology

Myra Drickman came to medicine
after a successful career in space science.
She writes: “I graduated from Barnard
. . . having majored in chemistry. I then
went to Boston U graduate school,
studying physical chemistry. After grad
school I worked for Bell Labs as a con-
sultant to NASA in Washington, DC.
Among my projects were designing a
flame-resistant spacecraft interior, ex-
perimental design for Apollo and Sky-
lab, and evaluation of contract proposals
submitted by other NASA contractors.

“In 1971 I applied to medical school.
While working, I attended the U of
Maryland at night to complete med
school requirements .... I attended
NYU School of Medicine .... I am
now an intern in the Depcirtment of
Surgery at Los Angeles County-USC
Medical Center. On July 1, I will begin
my residence in the Department of
Diagnostic Radiology at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles (the
largest private hospital west of the
Mississippi). In this medical specialty
I will be able to combine my experiences
in chemistry, physics, computer science,
and medicine.”

WAR INTERVENES

Jean Marshall Poole ’23
Manchester U Medical Branch ’27
General Medicine

Until World War II, Jean Poole’s
medical career took a back seat to her

family responsibilities. “I only did
anaesthetics and a children’s clinic.”
But all this changed when war broke
out. Jean’s husband joined the RAF
and his partner went into the Army.
Jean took over their general practice.

“A very strenuous time with a lot of
night calls— driving in the blackout and
often during bombing.”

After the war the Pooles had a joint
practice at Horley, “still very strenuous
and demanding, but at the same time
very rewarding.” By that time her
children were in boarding school.

In 1961, “in rather indifferent
health,” the Pooles retired to Scotland;
but after her husband’s death, Jean came
south to Surrey to live near her children.

3800 BABIES A YEAR

Judith Senitzky Reichman ’66
Tel Aviv U Medical School ’71
Obstetrics & gynecology

Judith Reichman decided in her soph-
omore year at Barnard that she wanted to
go into medicine and, after marrying an
Israeli lawyer, she began her medical
studies at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

A ABC Graduate
Fellowship

Each year, the AABC awards a
fellowship for graduate study to
one or more Barnard seniors or
alumnae who show exceptional
promise in their chosen fields. Last
year the awards totaled $3000.

More detailed information and
application forms may be obtained
from the Fellowship Committee,
Associate Alumnae of Barnard
College, 606 West 120th Street,
New York 10027.

Completed applications must be
filed by January 30, 1978.

A daughter, Ronit, was born 2V2 years
later, and after her husband opened a
practice in Tel Aviv, she finished her
training at the Medical School there,
graduating summa cum laude. Combining
training and mothering was difficult.
Her internship too was peripatetic, since
the family moved to Chicago while Mr.
Reichman earned a JSD from the U of
Chicago Law School, and his wife did
her ob/gyn/residency at Lying-In Hos-
pital.

“Again my daughter was looked after
by strangers and my husband took over
the duties on the frequent nights I was
‘on call.’ But somehow we all managed.

. . . . Now back in Israel, my husband
teaches at the Tel Aviv University Law
School and I at the Medical School. I
am on the attending staff of Hasharon
Hospital, in charge of the Obstetrics
Service (we have 3800 deliveries a year).

... It was felt that women were
being put down in medicine . . .
and we at Barnard had to . . .
make a point of filling the medi-
cal schools with bright, aggres-
sive Barnard graduates . . .

and am active in student and resident
training. I rarely am on call and now have
more time for my family, but am sorry
that I ‘missed out’ on the formative
years with my daughter, now eight
years old. . . . Barnard was definitely a
part of my decision to go into medicine.
So many science majors were pre-med
and it was felt that women were being
put down in medicine and therefore we
at Barnard had to overcome this and
make a point of filling the medical
schools with bright, aggressive Barnard
graduates. ...”

Judith Reichman feels the demands
of a medical career do exert enormous
pressure on family life, especially during
the training period. Much of the child-
raising must be left to nannies and
husbands. There can also be “conflicts
as to where to live because of conflicting
job offers.” She believes only an ex-
ceptionally motivated student should
choose medicine if she contemplates
a family.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

Doris Milman (Kreeger) ’38
NYU Medical School ’42
Child psychiatry

Despite her initial difficulty in gaining
admission to medical school— “In our day
being female and Jewish constituted a
formidable handicap” for which being
Phi Beta Kappa and a Rice Fellow did not
entirely compensate— Doris Milman’s
career has fully confounded both out-
worn prejudices.

She trained in pediatrics until the age
of 29, when, during surgery, a one-in-a-
million accident with a spinal anaesthetic
left her legs paralyzed. Fortunately she
refused to let the blow cripple her pro-
fessionally, and five years later she went
into pediatric psychiatry— a field in which
she has distinguished herself.

Besides carrying on a private practice,
she has been teaching for the past 13
years at Downstate Medical Center,
rising to the rank of full professor. For
two years she served as acting chairman
of the Pediatrics Department, “the only
woman chairman this medical school
has ever had and one of a handful coun-
try-wide.” Her publications number more
than three dozen articles on such topics
as school problems, organic brain dys-
function and drug abuse.

A member of many professional
societies, both pediatric and psychiatric.
Dr. Milman has served as president of
the New York Pediatric Society. This
year she used a sabbatical leave to con-
tinue her clinical investigations and serve
as visiting professor of pediatric psychia-
try at the Ben Gurion University of the
Negev in Israel.

The alumnae magazine for May 1957
contains an interview with Dr. Milman
in which she voiced her concern about
the orientation of our society toward
aggression. “We should not overlook the
cost in youthful behavior and attitudes
which may have far-reaching implica-
tions for the future,” she said propheti-
cally. She often felt that the total prob-
lem of mental health is so tremendous
that one woman’s work can easily be
lost, but she had faith in people’s capa-

city for action “once we have understood
the urgency of a problem . . .

“I would say that the first point to
note is that there are no easy answers.
We live in a rapidly changing, complex
society. There are no buttons we can
press, no wonder drugs we can take that
will automatically ‘adjust’ us and our
children to that society. We must have
the courage to look at our world and
ourselves. We must begin to translate
the values and standards of personal in-
tegrity and responsibility, of morality,
of freedom, into terms which have mean-
ing for our young people; which take
account of the realities of the world as
they see them. We cannot do this with-
out some pretty serious self-evaluation
and, I believe, considerable re-adjust-
ment of our own ideas and conduct as
adults.”

Doris Milman’s life is really rooted in
medicine. Her husband. Dr. Nathan
Kreeger, was a fellow student in medical
school; he is an internist and a professor
of internal medicine. Their only child,
Elizabeth Kreeger Goldman, who trained
at her mother’s medical school, is a
pediatrician, and their son-in-law is a
neuro-scientist. There are two grand-
children, aged 2 years and 6 months
respectively, who are not yet manifest-
ing career directions.

Doris Milman’s memories of Barnard
are not all positive— she writes that she
found the faculty aloof and felt con-
stantly cowed; and she found herself
less well prepared in the physical
sciences than fellow medical students,
despite an A- average and 97% MCAT
scores— but she says, “perhaps the
negative features were ultimately a plus
in that I had to work hard to compensate
for the educational and emotional
handicaps.” She certainly feels her
experiences in medicine to be totally
positive. “Altogether it’s been a busy,
fruitful, rewarding life,” filled with
professional, family, cultural and travel
pleasures. “I ascribe my success to a
devoted and resourceful husband, a
splendid start in my profession prior
to my disability, hard work, and good
fortune. You ask why I wanted to
study medicine. In the naivete of youth
I thought it would be exciting and
challenging. It has turned out to be
all of that and much more, beyond
all my youthful dreams.”

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 29

omen In Medical Acad

emia:

A Researck and Action Model in Educational Equity

by Marlys Hearst Witte ’55 and Frederica Hearst

Today 21% of the students entering
medical school and nearly 9% of all prac-
ticing physicians are women. Yet women
doctors represent only a very small per-
centage of senior positions on the faculty
and in decision-making administrative
posts, and there is no indication that their
numbers are increasing. Clearly an in-
depth study of the reasons for these
inequities and steps to correct the situa-
tion are needed.

In September, 1976, the American
Medical Women’s Association (AMWA)
was awarded a two-year grant under the
1974 Women’s Educational Equity Act
by the Office of Education of HEW, a
total of $84,425 for the first year. The
Women’s Educational Equity Program
was brought into existence to promote

. . . National statistics on the rep-
resentation of women in top ad-
ministrative posts of dean and
vice-president for health affairs
are simple. There are none . . .

1) “elimination of discrimination based
on sex and those elements of sex-role
stereotyping and sex-role socialization
in educational institutions . . . which
prevent full and fair participation by
women in educational programs and in
American society generally’’ and

2) “achievement of responsiveness of
educational institutions ... to the special
educational needs, interests and concerns
of women arising from inequitable
educational policies and practices.’’ Pro-
gram priorities were “capacity building,”

“transportability” and recognition
of “cultural diversity.” In other words,
a small investment of federal funds in
development and dissemination of high
potential model programs and products
was expected to spark a chain reaction
greatly expanding options for women at
all levels of education and throughout
the nation.

As a new project, an initial venture

into an unexplored area, AMWA’s under-
taking was mostly experimental, seeking
and developing a master plan for accumu-
lating data, analyzing practices, tapping
resources, and testing strategies for
change in medical academia.

The first difficulty encountered was
in obtaining statistics on women phy-
sicians on medical school faculties by
rank, by department, by school. In
fact, no kind of listing of women in
medical schools was ever compiled. In
what schools are women doctors located?
How many in each school? What posi-
tions do they hold? Is there a correlation
between the number of women medical
students and the number of women
faculty at a given school?

National statistics on the representa-
tion of women in top administrative
posts of dean and vice-president for
health affairs are simple. 7 There are none.
Group all department and division heads
together with associate and assistant
deans and other women M. D. adminis-
trators and the total shows only 1.8%
women. Although women physicians
comprise one-tenth of medical faculty,
a mere 2.9% of M. D. full professors and
only 4.4% of associate professors are
women. From school to school, the
number of senior women faculty varies
from a low of none to over 35% of the
total at the formerly all women’s Medical
College of Pennsylvania. Again, while
women appear in substantial numbers
in traditionally “feminine” specialties
like pediatrics, they are virtually unrepre-
sented in surgery. Relatively few of the
many women in biomedical research have
a grant or “lab of their own.”

This previously unavailable statistical
information is essential not only to prove
to the disbeliever that inequities do exist
for women but also to serve as the
starting point for evaluating change
stemming from project activities. In
addition, the list of senior women phy-
sicians, arranged by school, rank, and
department, obtained from medical
school catalogues, will serve as a talent
bank, a registry, of women in medical

. . . AMWA’s main focus ... is to
devise and test strategies for “rais-
ing the consciousness” of the
medical academic community to
the plight of women doctors . . .

academia and as a nucleus of a support
system for medical students, house
staff and junior faculty.

What biases, what prejudices do
women physicians encounter? Where
principally and by whom principally?
What is fact and what is myth? Which
techniques for attaining educational
equity are likely to meet with resistance
and from whom? These and related
questions are the subject of the project’s
survey designed by Dr. Cynthia Arem,
consulting educational psychologist,
to measure attitudes of men and women
students, faculty, and administrators
toward women in medical academia.

But AMWA’s main focus of activity
is to devise and test strategies for “raising
the consciousness” of the medical aca-
demic community to the plight of women
doctors and then to motivate and lead
this community to constructive change
from within. If effective, these programs
would prevent setbacks in the progress
of medical women such as occurred for
instance when all 19 women’s medical
schools were shut down during the hey-
day at the turn of the century (nearly
20% of Boston’s physicians were women
then) and again later when women
doctors were displaced along with Rosie
the Riveter after they successfully
“manned” the homefront during World
War H. 2

Any effort to increase the number of
women physicians and secure their pro-
fessional advancement must begin with an
understanding of the obstacles which
have discouraged or actually barred
women from medicine in the past— and
of which of these obstacles persist. The
course on “Women in Medicine” which

we are currently designing for medical
students (to be adapted later to different
educational levels) will concentrate on
personalities and events which have
brought women doctors to their present
position in this country and abroad,
their current status, and future prospects.

The story of women choosing a
career in medicine is a long, painful, and
continuing struggle against outright hai-
riers, widespread prejudices, and a formi-
dable male “buddy” network. Not until
1846 was a woman admitted to a medical
school. Elizabeth Blackwell, after
repeated futile attempts elsewhere, finally
persuaded the medical gatekeeper at
Geneva Medical School of western New
York to accept her. On January 23, 1849
she became Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,
the first woman M. D. in this country.

Now, more than 125 years later,
women seeking medical careers are still
facing some of the same problems,
barriers, prejudices, and discrimination of
one kind or another to a greater or lesser
degree. And the female doctor of today,
particularly the female medical faculty
member, may be even more lonely and
powerless them her 19th-century counter-
part. Women’s medical schools and
hospitals no longer exist and there are
no suffragettes eagerly watching her
progress. Today’s feminist movement

has not yet reached effectively beyond
medical school admissions and the
women’s health movement.

Nonetheless, the increase in the
number of women doctors is slow but
cumulatively notable. The view that
women belong in the home is definitely
weakening, and the prejudice against
women doctors is gradually dropping
away as more and more women prove
their competence and responsibility in
the health care system. Women’s health
issues are becoming more and more prom-
inent, and there is a growing demand for
the services of women doctors by women.
But the greatest help has come from
recent court actions and federal legisla-
tion prohibiting discrimination in edu-
cational opportunity and employment
with the threat of withholding of federal
funds for non-compliance. Indeed, the
dramatic rise in enrollment of women
medical students during the 1970’s
(from 9% of the total student body in
1969-1970 to 21% currently) followed
close on the heels of lengthy congres-
sional hearings on abuses in medical
school admissions, the Women’s Equity
Action League’s class-action complaint
against all medical schools in conjunc-
tion with individual lawsuits, and pro-
mulgation of the federal government’s
requirements for affirmative action.2
At the same time, impetus has been given
to reforming faculty recruitment,
promotion and tenure-awarding policies
as well as establishing part-time
residencies and child care facilities
to meet the needs of women.

All of this may look impressive in
contrast to the lone Dr. Elizabeth Black-
well way back in 1849, but is it a showing
that invites any complacency? A little
optimism, perhaps. And the “Women in
Medicine” course will end on a high note.

The big event during the first year of
the project was the first Leadership
Workshop in Medical Women’s Educa-
tional Equity held in Tucson, Arizona,
May 15-21, 1977. Into the meeting room,
with its display of books, articles, and
monographs on women in medicine
and sex-stereotyped toy nurse and doctor
kits, came 32 potential leaders for this
workshop. These women were selected
from 99 applicants at 54 of the nation’s
118 medical schools. The 32 represented
28 medical schools and included full
professors and associate professors and

assistant deans as well as a few medical
students and house officers. All clinical
departments and most basic science
departments were represented. Each
participant committed herself to promote
educational equity in her own institution,
region, or professional organization and
to work with a 2-to-5-member group

. . . The story of women choos-
ing a career in medicine is a long,
painful, and continuing struggle
against outright barriers, wide-
spread prejudices, and a formi-
dable male “buddy” network . . .

from her area to organize and conduct
subsequent follow-up leadership work-
shops.

During the meeting, the medical
profession was examined as a micro-
cosm of society, reflecting its attitudes,
norms, and values. Discussion centered
on sex-role stereotyping, sex-role social-
ization, tokenism, professionalism, leader-
ship styles, and, of course, included a
look at the “buddy” system and how it
operates in hiring and promotion of
faculty and administrators. Strategies
for achieving educational equity for
women in medical academia were next
explored in depth through review of the
six major federal laws regarding sex
discrimination by Dr. Margaret Jones,
Associate Director of the National
Education Association’s National Foun-
dation for the Improvement of Education.
Also considered were some affirmative ac-
tion steps toward more equitable academ-
ic advancement practices, anon-sexist and
more humanizing medical curriculum,
greater sensitivity in counseling women
medical students and house staff, and the
formation of a “new girls network.”

Representatives of Tucson’s television
and radio stations and newspapers then
presented their views on the image of
women physicians in the eyes of the pub-
lic and advised the participants on the
“do’s and don’ts” of dealing with the
mass media. In the final sessions. Dr. Eva
Schindler-Rainman, internationally re-
nowned workshop designer and proces-
sor, stirred up images of potentiality
“two years hence at your medical

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 31

school,” analyzed the positive and
negative forces in the field, and led the
group into formulating approaches and
specific action plans to make some images
a reality.

A highlight of the workshop was the
address of Dr. Mary Walsh, author of the
definitive scholarly work just published.
Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply,
tracing the history of the rise and fall of
women physicians in America, the causes,
the golden age of women doctors around
the turn of the century, and how these
gains were lost through failure to assume
positions of power in medical education.
Dr. Walsh went on to point out to the
participants that such setbacks can also
recur in the future and that they should
not be lulled into false security by taking
progress for granted.

. . . Recent studies of women re-
ceiving doctorates . . . confirm
suspicions that more women doc-
torates cannot be equated with
more women faculty . . .

The workshop participants are now
back at their own institutions teaching
and practicing medicine and also busily
planning future activities in educational
equity, including regional leadership
workshops. The next national workshop,
a shortened and revised form of the
original, is scheduled for November
28-30, 1977, just preceding the AMWA
meeting in Denver, Colorado.

Well, the Women in Medical Academia
project is now well on its way, and there
is cause for optimism from the enthusi-
astic response so far and indications of
its impact in the future.

But are the problems of women in
medical academia unique? Can they be
reasonably expected to dissolve simply
from the large influx of women medical
students and mounting pressure for
social change? Recent studies of women
receiving doctorates in mathematics and
chemistry and in science in general
confirm suspicions that more women
doctorates cannot be equated with more
women faculty. Despite a steady rise in
the number of women studying science
and completing PhDs, their representa-

tion on faculties, particularly in full-time
tenured positions, has not increased and
their salaries are lower than those of men
in similar positions. And only a tiny
percentage of high-level decision-making
administrative jobs in colleges and uni-
versities are held by women.

Thus, amidst all of AMWA’s encour-
aging plans and activities, it is not irrele-
vant to reflect on the title of an article
written a couple of years ago, “How
Equal is Equal Opportunity? Women
Physicians: As Numbers Rise, So Does
Status— Maybe.” From the vantage

point of the Women in Medical Academia
project, the title might more appropriate-
ly read, “. . . As Numbers Rise, So Does
Status— Maybe Not, Unless . . .”

Dr. Marly s Witte, a 1960 graduate of
N. Y. U. School of Medicine, has taught
medicine at New York University and
Washington University (St. Louis), and is
currently a professor in the Department
of Surgery at the University of Arizona
College of Medicine in Tucson. She is
program director of the USPHS-sup-
ported Clinical Research Center at the
Arizona Health Sciences Center and
coordinator of the Women in Medical
Academia Project for the American
Medical Women’s Association.

Frederica Hearst, an honor graduate of
Hunter College and a graduate student for
many years in English literature and
sociology at Columbia University, is Dr.
Witte’s mother. She “audited” the first
Leadership Workshop in Medical Wo-

men’s Educational Equity in Tucson and
is informal adviser to the Women in
Medical Academia Project.

Dr. Witte comments on her own
choice of medicine as a career: “From
my earliest childhood years, I was fortu-
nate in encountering a succession of
outstanding women role models (be-
ginning with my mother) and numerous
supportive men as well. Not a few of
these influences entered my life during
those happy formative years at Barnard.
As I wavered between law and mining
engineering, and later specialized in
Russian-foreign areas, then invertebrate
zoology, no one cautioned me that these
careers were too preposterous for a
woman, and I was encouraged to pursue
my interests and develop my talents
freely. In my final choice of medicine
and also as a freshman architect of
social change in educational equity,
my broad liberal arts education and
equal respect for the potential of men
and women has been of inestimable
value to me, particularly during ‘hard
times’.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Witte, M. H., A. Arem, and M. Hol-
guin, Women Physicians in United
States Medical Schools. J. A. M.

W. A. 31: 211, 1976.

2: Walsh, Mary Roth, Doctors Wanted:
No Women Need Apply. Yale Uni-
versity Press, New Haven, 1977.

3. Lay, Mary, How Equal is Equal
Opportunity? Women Physicians: As
Numbers Rise So Does Status— Maybe.
Modern Medicine, June 1, 1975.

AAUW SEEKS MEMBERS

Do you know that as a Barnard
graduate you are eligible to join the
American Association of University
Women? AAUW’s programs offer
study, community action, legislative
issues, and the fellowship of many
women of similar interests. Research
and project grants are available to
members.

Branches exist in every state and in
54 foreign countries. To learn more
about AAUW, write the Membership
Chairman at the National Office, 2401
Virginia Avenue NW, Washington, DC
20037.

BARNARD FUND

A MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT MATTFELD:

I want to extend a special note of thanks and appreciation to each
and every alumna who gave time, energy and money to make the
1976-77 Alumnae Fund so successful. Not only did the annual alumnae
giving program surpass its goal by raising over $557,000, but total
alumnae giving accounted for $923,134 of the $1,389,520 contributed
to the Barnard Fund from all sources.

Your generous and growing financial support of the College gives
tangible evidence of your continuing pride and confidence in Barnard.
As we plan ahead for a demanding and challenging period in the life of
the College, it is heart-warming to know that we can count on the
personal and financial commitment of devoted alumnae.

A MESSAGE FROM BFAC CHAIRMAN BARBARA SAHLMAN:

Thanks again! We’ve achieved our goal. All of your concern, care,
and consideration has again made it possible for us to have an unsur-
passed year.

Now until June ’78 let’s MOVE AHEAD.

BARNARD FUND ALUMNAE COMMITTEE: Hilda Minneman Folkman-Bell
’32, Sheila Carol Gordon ’63, Naomi F. Levin ’71, Margaret Underwood Lourie
’53, Frances Meyer Mantell ’38, Marcella Jung Rosen ’55, Barbara Glaser Sahlman
’53; EX OFFICIO: Janet Blair ’77, Sarah Dinkins Cushman ’58, Jane Epstein
Gracer ’58, Blanche Kazon Graubard ’36, Nanette Hodgman Hayes ’40, Barbara
Valentine Hertz ’43, Helen Pond McIntyre ’48, Eleanor Streichler Mintz ’44,
Ruth Marie O’Brien ’78, Dena Rosenthal Warshaw ’52.

HIGHLIGHTS

FUND TOTALS

* Alumnae annual giving reached a
record high of $557,184 — $52,600
more than last year.

* Alumnae participation increased
from 41.3% to 43.2%, to set a record
for a non-capital-campaign year.

* Alumnae members of The Barnard
Council contributed $389,797 of
which $231,303 counted toward an-
nual giving. (The Council annual giving
total is $44,914 more than last year’s
and represents more than 41% of all
alumnae annual giving.)

* Alumnae responses to the seven
telethons totaled $70,638 — $16,867
more than last year.

* The Thrift Shop contributed a near-
record $32,919 to the College’s
Scholarship Fund.

Gifts to the Barnard Fund in 1976-77 came from the
following sources:

Alumnae

923,134.22

Research Grants

763,428.24

F oundations

255,386.47

Corporations

45,195.21

Trustees (non-alumnae)

28,908.00

Other non-alumnae groups

8,038.72

Other non-alumnae individuals

69,379.41

Parents

55,982.27

Faculty and staff (non ^dumnae)

3,196.00

Students

300.00

TOTAL

$2,152,948.54

Alumnae gifts came from the following

sources:

Class Giving, Thrift Shop, Clubs, Misc.

557,183.56

Bequests

181,397.53

Pooled Income Funds

39,603.13

Special Gift

144,950.00

TOTAL ALUMNAE GIFTS

923,134.22

THRIFT SHOP

Under the able leadership of Nanette
Hodgman Hayes ’40, Chairman, and a de-
dicated crew of volunteers. The Barnard
Scholarship Unit of Everybody’s Thrift
Shop contributed a total of $32,918.79
to the College’s financial aid program. In
the past five years, more than 100 Bar-
nard students have been helped by Thrift
Shop proceeeds. Grants have ranged from
$100 to $3,200.

Volunteers for Barnard during the past
year include: Edna Edelman Friedman
’35, Dorothy Roe Gallanter ’32, Genia
Carroll Graves ’30, Nanette Hodgman
Hayes ’40, M. Jasenas, Helen Chamberlain
Josefsberg ’30, Juliana Johns Krause ’34,
Helen Leuchtenberg ’30, Margaret Mac-
donald ’42, Alice McGuigan, Marion Phi-
lips, Dorothy Putney ’25, Hester M. Rusk
’12, Jurate Jasenas Scotten ’63, Else Zorn
Taylor ’31, Yvonne Untch, Adelaide
Whitehill Vaughan ’30, Fern Yates ’25.

The shop, located at 330 East 59th Street
(Tel. 212-355-9263), is in need of addi-
tional volunteers as well as saleable thrift.
Items most needed for sale include: bric-
a-brac, linens, china, glassware, clocks,
mirrors, picture frames, furniture, cloth-
ing, and electrical appliances. Residents
south of 120th Street in Manhattan may
arrange to have donations picked up.

TELETHON ACTIVITIES

Alumnae responses to the seven telethons
totaled $70,638 — a new record. Under
the superb leadership of Frances Meyer
Mantell ’38, 110 alumnae and 42 students
reached out to a total of 6,341 alumnae.

REUNION GIFTS

Reunion classes contributed a total of
$207,123 to the College in 1976-77, in-
cluding $44,950 in special gifts and be-
quests and $17,659 in pooled income
funds. Under the leadership of BFAC Re-
union Coordinator Margaret Underwood
Lourie ’53, reunion classes raised a total
of $139,513 in Annual Giving.

STUDENT FUND RAISING

Under the leadership of the Senior Class
Officers and the Senior Gift Committee,
110 members of the Class of 1977 contri-
buted a total of $897 as their Senior Class
Gift. In addition, 80 members of the
Class of 1977 have pledged $4,325 to be
paid within the next five years.

CLASS GIVING TOTALS

CLASS PRESIDENT

NO. SO-

NO. OF

AMOUNT

% PARTI-

CLASS

& FUND CHAIRMAN

LICITED

DONORS

GIVEN

CITATION

1901

$ 100.00

100.0

1903

400.00

20.0

1904

* May Parker Eggleston

1,095.00

80.0

1905

Florence Meyer Waldo

691.88

20.0

1906

Jessie Parsons Condit

411.00

38.5

1907

Edith Sombom Isaacs
* Eleanor Holden Stoddard

56,550.00

28.6

1908

1909

Helen Loeb Kaufmann

Mathilde Abraham Wolff

3,475.00

36.4

1910

Adelaide Loehrsen

980.09

35.3

1911

Florrie Holzwasser

885.00

32.0

1912

Edith Valet Cook

1,322.64

42.2

1913

LucUe Mordecai Lebair

Joan Sperling Lewinson

4,835.50

42.6

1914

Edith Halfpenny

Edith Mulhall Achilles

26,690.00

45.8

1915

* Lucy Morgenthau Heineman

1,133.00

46.3

1916

6,935.00

31.5

1917

Frances Krasnow

3,272.50

65.0

1918

Margaret Moses Fellows

Mary Griffiths Clarkson

2,640.00

48.8

1919

Gretchen Torek Gorman

4,501.00

62.3

1920

* Lucy Carter Lee

Elaine Kennard Geiger

9,223.00

57.0

1921

Dorothy Robb Sultzer

Leonora Andrews

2,424.07

46.2

1922

Mildred Peterson Welch

Louise J. Schlichting

5,438.12

61.4

1923

Garda Brown Bowman

5,072.30

65.3

1924

Winifred J. Dunbrack

Eleanor Kortheuer Stapelfeldt

119

2,671.00

54.6

1925

Cicely Appelbaum Ryshpan
Margaret McAllister Murphy
Anne Leerburger Gintell

136

13,512.18

55.2

1926

Julie D. Goeltz

Ruth Friedman Goldstein

126

6,610.31

53.2

1927

Helen Moran O’Regan

Catherine Baldwin Woodbridge

167

9,397.50

47.3

1928

Marjory Nelson

120

5,374.69

61.7

1929

Frances McGee Beckwith

Eleanor Rosenberg

166

14,393.92

57.2

1930

Amy Jacob Goell

Marion Rhodes Brown

154

6,172.93

55.2

1931

Ruth Goldstein Fribourg

Mildred Sheppard

Else Zom Taylor

134

106

7,141.25

79.1

1932

Esther Grabelsky Biederman
Lorraine Popper Price

134

12,720.00

71.0

1933

Caroline Atz Hastorf

Ruth Korwan

178

7,711.68

41.0

1934

Denise Abbey

Gertrude Lally Scannell

136

6,317.00

57.4

1935

Ruth Bedford McDaniel

175

9,966.00

40.6

1936

Marion Meurlin Gregory

Electra Guizot Demas

183

10,978.25

37.7

1937

Elizabeth Dew Searles

Joan Geddes Ulanov

181

122

7,810.00

67.4

1938

Claire W. Murray

175

6,702.04

53.1

1939

Frances Meyer Mantell

Elaine Hildebrand Mueser

146

6,626.25

63.7

1940

June Williams

Geraldine Sax Shaw

165

6,867.12

60.0

1941

Nanette Hodgman Hayes

Ann Landau Kwitman

Joy Lattman Wouk

Helen Sessinghaus Williams

169

104

11,139.62

61.5

1942

Jeanette Halstead Kellogg

Lois Voltter Silberman

151

7,884.46

60.3

1943

Joann McQuiston

Carol Hawkes

159

9,635.00

50.9

Christiana S. Graham

* Deceased

CLASS PRESIDENT

NO. SO-

NO. OF AMOUNT

% PARTI-

CLASS

& FUND CHAIRMAN

LICITED

DONORS GIVEN

CITATION

1944

Idris M. Rossell

Florence Levine Seligman

180

100

3,756.25

55.6

1945

Betty Hamnett

Ann Ross Fairbanks

203

116

5,504.00

57.1

1946

Cecile Parker Carver

Florence Butler Quinlan

201

7,893.00

47.3

1947

Helen DeVries Edersheim

232

113

4,645.50

48.7

1948

Kathryn Schwindt Zufall

J anet Wessling Paulsen

264

130

18,517.18

49.2

1949

Margaret Mather Mecke

Laura Nadler Israel

224

123

4,814.50

54.9

1950

Maureen McCann Miletta

Cecile Singer

236

142

22,263.02

60.2

1951

Naomi Loeb Lipman

207

121

7,146.00

58.5

1952

Miriam Schapiro Grosof
Margaret Collins Maron

258

146

8,541.39

56.6

1953

Margaret Underwood Lourie
Evelyn Dton Strauss

250

145

8,928.00

58.0

1954

Elaine Tralins Roeter

Carol Criscuolo Cristina

213

110

6,453.81

51.6

1955

Barbara Silver Horowitz

Jane Were-Bey Gcirdner

Diana Rubin Gerber

259

7,225.96

33.2

1956

Toby Stein

Julia H. Keydel

287

146

5,796.64

50.9

1957

Maryalice Long Adams

Janet Gottiieb Davis

Barbara Rosenberg Grossman
Norma Ketay Asnes

283

150

16,630.00

53.0

1958

Joan Sweet Jankell

Elaine Postelneck Yamin

316

149

4,814.88

47.2

1959

Norma Rubin Talley

Audrey Gold Margolies

311

137

11,261.00

44.1

1960

Diana Shapiro Bowstead

Muriel Lederman Storrie

290

180

5,416.38

62.1

1961

Sydney Oren Brandwein

Elaine Rae Chapnick

271

139

6,444.63

51.3

1962

Joan Rezak Sadinoff

Alice Finkelstein Alekman

298

180

8,493.50

60.4

1963

Marian Mandel Bauer

Sheila Gordon

313

131

4,219.53

41.9

1964

Joan Simon Hollander

Phyllis Peck Makovsky

319

134

4,220.50

42.0

1965

Elizabeth Booth Michel

Ellen M. Kozak

284

113

5,477.00

39.8

1966

Susan Cohn

Kathy Kandel Epstein

Marsha Kayser Hutchings

277

107

6,235.00

38.6

1967

Janet Carlson Taylor

Bette Bruckman Diamond

293

121

4,745.50

41.3

1968

Gail A. Wilder

Lynne Flatow Bimholz

395

3,261.00

24.3

1969

Linda Krakower Greene

Frances Bradley Brooks

365

135

3,322.00

37.0

1970

Camille Kiely KeUeher

Joan Woodford Sherman

391

1,906.50

18.9

1971

- Naomi F. Levin

Barbara Balinger Bucholz

358

111

3,110.00

31.0

1972

Danita McVay Greene

Caryn R. Leland

425

1,348.00

16.5

1973

Jodie Galos

Susan Kane

429

812.00

11.4

1974

Karen O’Neal

Marilyn Chin

480

1,618.50

9.6

1975

Lisa Churchville

Theresa Vorgia Shapiro

Iris Albstein

534

687.18

12.2

1976

Robyn Grayson

Casey Garrity

300

1,852.00

24.3

1977

Patricia Herring

897.00

TOTAL

13,974

6030

$515,963.65

43.2

Other Alumnae Gifts

41,219.91

GRAND TOTAL

6050

$557,183.56

TRUSTEES ESTABLISH
EIGHT NEW ENDOWED FUNDS

Contributions of $432,476.67 were made
by both alumnae and non-alumnae to
endowed funds during the past year.

Eight new funds were designated by the
Trustees in fiscal 1976-77;

Barnard College Club of Brooklyn
Scholarship Fund
Bogardus Scholarship Fund
Eide Scholarship Fund
Ericsson Scholarship Fund
Halloran Scholarship Fund
Kupfer Scholarship Fund
Maarschalk Scholarship Fund
Reinheimer Scholarship Fund

THE BARNARD COUNCIL

Alumnae members of the Barnard Coun-
cil contributed a total of $389,797. Of
this amount, $231, 303 counted toward
annual giving, representing more than
41% of cdl alumnae annual giving. Since
its inception in 1974, the Barnard Coun-
cil has attracted 115 members, of whom
99 are alumnae. This group of alumnae
and friends of Barnard College have pub-
licly expressed their willingness to sup-
port the College by making regular and
generous gifts.

Junior Membership on the Barnard Coun-
cil consists of young alumnae who pledge
$500 or more annually. Junior Council
members are entitled to all privileges of
Council members.

COLLEGE CLUBS

Barnard College Clubs contributed a total
of $8,122.36 to the College in 1976-77,
as a result of club benefits and other
fund-raising projects.

Club gifts included
following clubs:

Bergen County

Denver

Detroit

F airfield

Hartford

Houston

Long Island

Monmouth County

New York

San Francisco

Springfield

Tulsa

Washington

Westchester

donations from the

$ 182.00
100.00
840.70

1,390.00

300.00

550.00

520.00

300.00
1,133.50

923.99

133.99

100.00
763.50
822.98

MEMORIAL GIFTS

Alumnae and non-alumnae remembered through gifts to the
MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP FUND:

Ethel Rossin Asiel
Helen Purdy Beale ’18
Elsinor Shelton Belk ’26
Helen Warren Brown ’22
Louise Oberle Chamberlin ’18
Margaret Hine Cram ’44
Louise Rockfield Dahne ’29
Constance Lambert Doepel ’19
Katharine Swift Doty ’04
EUen O’Gorman Duffy ’08
Helena Shine Dutton ’18
May Parker Eggleston ’04
Clara Eliot

Mary Lee Slaughter Emerson ’23
Eleanor Engelman Fink ’52
Mrs. Goldberg
Jack Gumbinner
Mother of Dr. Michael Janis
Bertha Sherline Jovis ’18
Philip Kazon

Elecia Carr Knickerbocker ’19
Fannie Rees Kuh ’15
Cornelia Geer LeBoutillier ’1 7
Carl G. Lenk

Albert H. Levi
Audrey Gellen Maas ’54
Minerva Mores ’28
Margaret Mixter Partridge ’35
Ruth E. Reidy ’35
Gertrude Braun Rich ’27
Marie Wallfield Ross ’24
Amy Lyon Schaeffer ’37
Hildegarde FitzGerald
Shinners ’34
Ruth Clark Sterne ’22
Helen Stevens Stoll ’18
Robert L. Taylor
John J. Troy
Thomas Troy
Hsi Fong Waung ’62
Alice J. Webber ’15
Helen WeUl
Herman Weiss
Carolyn Davis Werley ’50
Louise B. Wiedhopf ’13
L. Allison Wier ’29
Sophie P. Woodman ’07
Lola Robinson Young ’13

Gifts made to various funds in memory of alumnae and non-alumnae:

Frank Maturo

Audrey Osborn Elliott

Mary Lee Slaughter Emerson ’23

Anne Barrett ’27

Anne Torpy Toomey ’26

Deceased members of Class of ’26

Edith WiUmann Emerson ’19

Mother of Christiana S. Graham ’43

Bertha Sherline Jovis ’18

Marie Wallfield Ross ’24

Abbott Fund

Elliott Fund— Women’s Center
Gildersleeve Fund
Miner Scholarship Fund
1926 Emergency Student Aid Fund
1926 Emergency Student Aid Fund
StUi Francisco Club Scholarship Fund
San Francisco Club Scholarship Fund
San Francisco Club Scholarship Fund
Steiner Scholarship Fund

Gifts in memory of alumnae and non-alumnae to funds
bearing their names:

Louise Laidlaw Backus ’29
Dorothy Boyle ’40
Babette Deutsch ’17
Augusta Salik Dublin ’06
May Parker Eggleston ’04
Edith WiUmann Emerson ’19
Edward J. King
Yves Lindsay LeMay ’52
Judith Lewittes ’55
Dorothy Miner ’26
Julia Fisher Papper ’37
Jacqueline Zelniker Radin ’59
Amy Lyon Schaeffer ’37
Marion Levi Stern ’20
Anne Torpy Toomey ’26
Marion Pinkussohn Victor ’25
Marian Churchill White ’29

Backus Memorial Fund
Boyle Scholarship Fund
Deutsch Scholarship Fund
Dublin Fund

Eggleston Scholarship Fund
Emerson Fund
King Memorial Fund
LeMay Scholarship Fund
Lewittes Scholarship Fund
Miner Scholarship Fund
Papper Scholarship Fund
Radin Scholarship Fund
Schaeffer Fund
Stem-Gildersleeve Fund
Toomey Prize Fund
Marion Victor Studio
White Prize Fund

Unrestricted gifts made in memory of alumnae:

Marjorie Bier Minton ’24
Elsie Oakley ’17

Donations for the purchase of library books in
memory of alumnae and non-alumnae:

Louise Levinson Adolph ’55
Barbara Cross
Stephanie Lynn Kossoff

A gift restricted to an academic department m
memory of a non-alumna:

Howard S. Levy Biological Sciences Department

A gift restricted to a memorial retrospective sculpture
exhibition in memory of an alumna:

Ruth Lowe Bookman ’42

DEFERRED GIVING

Deferred gifts are ones which will benefit Barnard at a future
date. Donors select from a wide variety of gift options: be-
quests, life insurance, pooled income funds, and charitable
remainder trusts.

Policy making and planning for the Deferred Giving Program is
the work of the Deferred Giving Committee: Olga M. Bendix
’33, Chairman, Flora Benas ’43, Esther Grabelsky Biederman
’31, Eileen Evers Carlson ’48, Margaret King Eddy ’16, Doro-
thy Roe Gallanter ’32, Linda B. Hirschson ’62, Eleanor M.
Johnson ’41, Mary Donovan Meyer ’35, Dorothy Putney ’25.

BEQUESTS

The College received one non-alumnae and 14 alumnae be-
quests totalling $195,980.24 during the past fiscal year. The
bequests ranged in size from $1,000 to $73,560 and included
proceeds of outright bequests of specific amounts, bonds, and
percentages of estates.

Bequests of endowed funds, including scholarships and fellow-
ships, were received from the following estates: Elizabeth M.
Bogardus ’44, Laura Teller Ericsson ’33, Hetta Stapff Halloran
’ll, Barbara Scovil Maarschalk ’32, Ethel Louise Paddock (in
memory of Josephine Paddock ’06), Eleanor Kaiser Reinhei-
mer ’28, Margaret Miller Rogers ’23, Frances M. Smith ’32,

Eleanor Holden Stoddard ’06, Dorothy Caiman Wallerstein ’09.

Unrestricted and current student aid bequests were received
from the following estates: Vera B. David, Deaconess Jane B.
Gillespy ’00, Elizabeth MaCauley ’14, Janet Robb ’20, Blanche
Reitlinger Wolff ’05.

POOLED INCOME FUND

Participation in Bcunard’s Pooled Income Fund doubled during
1976-77, bringing the cumulative total in the Fund to
$113,005. Seven alumnae added $39,603.13 to the Fund dur-
ing the past year. Each contributed a minimum of $5,000 to
the College and each is receiving approximately 6.7% in in-
come quarterly.

The Pooled Income Fund enables Barnard to obtain additional
capital funds while providing its benefactors with life incomes
as well as important tax benefits. Some donors designated rela-
tives as beneficiaries of the income produced by the Fund, and
some restricted the use of their funds to particular depart-
ments or for scholarships.

Other methods of “investing” in the College include unitrusts
and annuity trusts which also enable their donors to receive
life incomes on their gifts as well as tax benefits.

Gifts made to the Deferred Giving Program count toward ful-
filling the requirements for membership in the Barnard Council.

\^tae II

UPDATING MEDICINE

Lila Andurska Wallis ’47

Columbia P & S ’51

Internal medicine, endocrinology

& hematology

“I am having a great deal of fun in
continuing to learn,” says Lila Wallis of
her diverse medical career. Besides her
private practice, teaching at Cornell
Medical Center, and resecurch in hormonal
replacement therapy. Dr. Wallis is the
principal force behind ‘Update Your
Medicine.’ This is a program of continu-
ing medical education ‘‘for the New York
Hospital attendings as well as for outside
doctors,” and in addition to adminis-
trative duties, she is responsible for the
editing and publishing of lecture tran-
scripts. She is also serving her second
term as president of the Women’s Medical
Association of New York City and has
seen the organization greatly increase its
membership during her tenure.

. . . With determination, intellec-
tual ability and the right husband
a woman physician can write her
own ticket . . . without detri-
ment to her family . . .

Born in Poland, Lila Wallis came to
Barncu-d after World War II and service
in the Polish underground had inter-
rupted her university studies. She is
marrried to a chemical engineer and has
two sons, both in medical school. Al-
though she admits that parenthood
slowed her career down somewhat, she
feels that the experience made her a
better physician. Having to pack a lot
of interaction with her children into a
limited time made her learn to organize
her time better.

Her sex has caused problems only
‘‘with a handful of male colleagues,
medical dinosaurs;” but she cautions,
“you still have to be better than your
male colleague to get to the same place.”
Still, Dr. Wallis would advise a pre-med
student that “with determination, in-
tellectual ability and the right husband,
a woman physician can write her own
ticket within her chosen field (just as
many men do) without detriment to
her family.”

BIRTH CONTROL PIONEER

Fumiko Yamaguchi Amano ’25
Yale Medical School ’29
Gynecology

Dr. Amano began her medical practice
in the U. S. and Argentina, but after her
marriage in 1934 she went with her
husband, a nose, ear and throat specialist,
to live in Tokyo, where they opened a
clinic.

After the war the Amanos became
leaders in Japan’s struggle for population
control. They founded and served as
co-editors of the first birth control
magazine there, the Japan Planned Par-
enthood Quarterly.

In 1952 Fumiko Amano published
a study on “Population Control in
Japan.” Dr. Amano reported at that
time that one of the most common
objections of country women to
practicing planned parenthood was that
almost the only relief they got from
back-breaking farm work was when
they fed their babies.

After her husband’s death, Fumiko
Amano returned to California and
served on the staff of View Park Com-
munity Hospital in Los Angeles.

RADIOLOGIST AT ST. LUKE’S

Virginia Kanick ’4 7
Columbia P & S ’51
Radiology

Virginia Kanick’s is not a usual special-
ty for a woman, and she has remained

. . . Our present campaign is no
longer to get women into medi-
cal school . . . but to secure
positions in prestigious halls
of academe . . .

close to her roots in practicing it. She
stayed at St. Luke’s after completing her
radiology residency, and is now associate
director of radiology there. She also
serves as clinical professor of radiology on
the faculty of P & S, her alma mater.

A specialist in arteriography, she
counts her early clinical research in that
field among the highlights of her career,
and has published at least 15 articles
in this area of medical literature.

A strong proponent of expanded
medical opportunities for women,
Virginia Kanick writes: “Our present
campaign is no longer to get women
into medical school, or into good jobs,
or into good practices, but to secure
positions in prestigious halls of academe
and other professional power structures
where directions and decisions are de-
termined. Medical schools have been slow
to promote women in rank.”

EDUCATING THE
‘UNEDUCABLE’

Mary Stewart Hooke Goodwin ’28
Johns Hopkins Medical School ’32
Pediatrics

“The story of autistic children is ‘a
classic in fragmentation of medical care,
in oversights, misinterpretation, and
deprivation,’ to Drs. Mary Stewart
Goodwin and T. Campbell Goodwin, a
husband-and-wife team of pediatricians
who are pioneers in the education of the
mentally handicapped.” So begins an
article on the work of the Goodwins
published in Roche Medical Image &
Commentary in 1969. ‘The problems
of childhood autism,’ they maintain,
‘have been obscured by attention to
the child’s psychologic symptoms rather
than to his medical, social, and educa-
tional needs ....

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 33

. . . The story of autistic children
is a classic in fragmentation of
medical care, in oversights, mis-
representation and deprivation . . .

“For a combined total of 78 years
the Goodwins have practiced pediatrics
and studied the learning habits of
children along the Eastern Seaboard.
They were the first to use the ‘talking
typewriter’ (a computerized machine,
programmed to a tape recorder) as a
diagnostic tool for children with severe
mental disturbances. Of the hundreds
they aided, many— who were initially
declared ‘uneducable’— were eventually
admitted to special schools or, some-
times, to regular classes. Some, say
the Goodwins, needed only to have
their visual or auditory deficiencies
corrected; some were suffering from
organic diseases; some, for whatever
physical or emotional cause, were merely
slow at learning to speak, read or relate
to other people.

“ ‘I see children as children— I don’t
care who has diagnosed them as what,’
says Dr. Mary Goodwin ....’’

“It would be dangerous, warn the
Goodwins, to say that they have found
a cure for the autistic child. ‘The type-
writer is only a diagnostic tool— a clue to
communication efforts in children with
communication disorders. It helps pro-
vide a learning environment ....’’’

The Goodwins first met in Baltimore
when he was her first teacher in pedi-
atrics. Six years later they were
married when, after several residencies
and a stint at Vassar, Mary Hooke re-
turned to Johns Hopkins as an associate
in pediatrics and a pediatrician in the
Family Clinic. In the next 10 years she
also: participated in a wartime research
program on syphilis control and was a
consultant in that division of the U. S.
Public Health Service; carried on a
private practice; and had three children.

“The investigations of the Goodwins
into childhood patterns of learning began
in the late 1940s, when they were both
connected with the Mary Imogene
Bassett Hospital, a voluntary 100-bed
hospital in Cooperstown (NY), affili-

ated with Columbia University’s College
of Physicians & Surgeons ....’’

They became convinced that “reading
was central in the life of every school
child. In the child’s eyes, success in
reading meant success as a person; failure
in reading meant total failure .... The
experience encouraged the Goodwins to
start a remedial summer school (the
Mohican Reading School) with a faculty
consisting of the two pediatricians, a
clinical psychologist, a social worker,
remedial reading teachers, speech thera-
pists, and recreational assistants. Approx-
imately 400 pupils, aged 6 to 16 years,
were selected each summer for 10 suc-
cessive years— all with reading or speech
problems of varying degree.’’

The reading school provided an extra-
ordinary learning experience for teachers
and parents as well as pupils. Writing of
it in Mental Hygiene in October 1969,
the Goodwins said that they “were
faced with more questions than answers
about learning disabilities . . .(Yet) con-
fused as we were in many ways, we were
quite sure that an accepting environment
provided the best milieu for success in
learning to read.’’

In 1964 they established a year-round
study of communication disorders at the
Edison Responsive Environment Labora-
tory connected with the Bassett Hospital.
This center used the computerized type-
writer for investigation of learning disa-
bilities, sensory impairment and autism;
Mary Goodwin was its director.

During 28 months the ERE was made
available to 150 children from 3 to 16
years of age, in many cases with remark-
able results. “In our experience, the ERE
was less an agent for change than a focus
for discovery .... There was neither
‘success’ nor ‘failure’ for any child. Each
gave guidelines toward better under-
standing of behavior and levels of compe-
tence ....’’

After their retirement from the
hospital, the Goodwins worked with the

. . . Reason persuades us that all
children cannot be relieved of
all of life’s brutalities, but many
can be saved from some . . .

N. Y. State Department of Mental hy-
giene, she as pediatric consultant and
he as assistant commissioner for chil-
dren’s services. She also taught at Albany
Medical College. Since Cameron’s death
in 1973, Mary Goodwin writes, she has
continued their efforts concerning or-
ganic disease in autistic children, bureau-
cratic mismanagement of mentally handi-
capped children in state bureaus (we
are all familiar with the horror stories
of Willowbrook), misuse of tranquilizing
drugs in the treatment of these children,
and the writing of a book on autism.

The Goodwins often felt frustrated
and discouraged because so much needed
to be done and so little, they felt, could
be accomplished. Yet, they wrote:
“reason persuades us that all children
cannot be relieved of all of life’s brutali-
ties, but many can be saved from some.
The task is no larger than the commit-
ment ....’’

A ABC Graduate
Fellowship

Each year, the AABC awards a
fellowship for graduate study to
one or more Barnard seniors or
alumnae who show exceptional
promise in their chosen fields. Last
year the awards totaled $3000.

More detailed information and
application forms may be obtained
from the Fellowship Committee,
Associate Alumnae of Barnard
College, 606 West 120th Street,
New York 10027.

Completed applications must be
filed by January 30, 1978.

SCIENTIST PHYSICIAN

Ann Miller Lawrence ’52
U of Cal in San Francisco ’60
Endocrinology

Ann Lawrence first studied science,
and only after her PhD in biology and
biochemistry was completed did she
turn to medicine. She writes, “Basically,

I am a fairly traditional quadruped in the
medical field, with significant responsi-
bilities in patient care, teaching, research,
and administration. I am a card-carrying
endocrinologist and have a very busy
private practice. I . . . did my house
officership at the U of Chicago where I
stayed on as faculty and as their first
woman professor in the department of
medicine.” She is now professor of
biochemistry at the Stritch School of
Medicine of Loyola U, and associate
chief of staff for education and program
director in endocrinology at the affiliated
VA Hospital. “In addition to patient care
and the usual kinds of clinical teaching,”
she says, “I have a very active clinical
research program dealing with diabetes-
related research and with neuroendo-
crinology.”

Changing career directions runs in the
Lawrence family. Husband Roy left a
philosophy professorship to take a law
degree at the U of Chicago, and is now
an assistant state’s attorney in Illinois.
“He is thoroughly enjoying his second
career,” she says, “and the kids and I,
in turn, delight in his new-found en-
joyment.”

AN ENDOWED CHAIR

Ruth Taubenhaus Gross ’41
Columbia P & S
Pediatrics

The Palo Alto, CA Times reported
last September that Dr. Ruth Gross had
been named to the McCormick profes-
sorship at Stanford University Medical
Center, the first woman in the universi-
ty’s 85-year history to hold an endowed
chair. The chair was funded by a portion
of a $5 million bequest from Mrs. Kath-

erine McCormick, a champion of
women’s rights, in memory of her hus-
band, Stanley McCormick.

Dr. Gross is the director of the divi-
sion of ambulatory pediatrics and chief
of pediatric clinics. Dean Clayton Rich
of the School of Medicine, announcing
her appointment, said, “She has con-
tributed new approaches to compre-
hensive health education and care for
children and improvement of pediatric
training programs.”

Ruth Gross has managed to pursue
her medical career with distinction,
despite the occasional constraints im-
posed by her husband’s career. She
held academic appointments at Rad-
cliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England
while he was studying there on a Rhodes
scholarship, and has also taught at Albert
Einstein and at the University of Cali-
fornia. She also served as chief of pedi-
atrics at Mount Zion Medical Center in
San Francisco, and as associate dean
for student affairs at Stanford.

In 1975, Dr. Gross received the
Henry J. Kaiser Award for outstanding
contributions to medical education.

CHIEF OF SURGERY

Elizabeth Coryllos ’49
Cornell Medical School ’53
Pediatric surgery

To combine medicine and marriage,
says Elizabeth Coryllos, you must be able
to do two full-time very demanding jobs
and not collapse. She has developed a
highly successful practice as a surgeon, is
married to a busy lawyer, Paul Lardi, and
is raising four children. She says parent-
hood has made her a more understanding

. . . To combine medicine and
marriage you must be able to
do two full-time very demanding
jobs and not collapse . . .

doctor but a totally exhausted one.

In an interview with Prism magazine in
1974, Dr. Coryllos discussed the chal-
lenges and problems she encountered as
chief of pediatric surgery at Mercy
Hospital in Rockville Centre and operat-
ing at six other Nassau County hospitals.
This widely scattered practice demands
much time for transportation. Dr. Coryl-
los was also vice president of the New
York Women’s Medical Association and
an associate professor of surgery at Stony
Brook University. Other offices include
the presidency of the New York Pedia-
tric Surgery Society and the Hellenic
Medical Society.

After her training she practiced pediat-
ric surgery in Toronto and at Flower
Hospital in New York. Her marriage came
at a time when both she and her fiance
had “safe, secure positions.” But both
wanted independence and country living.
So Dr. Coryllos joined a group practice
and Paul Lardi formed a law partnership
on Long Island.

The arrival of the children scarcely in-
terrupted her practice. “I worked until I
went into labor with each child and then
took off for about four to six weeks,” she
says. “I felt well during the pregnancy so
there was no reason for me not to contin-
ue operating. . . I always had another sur-
geon with me . . . for the last few weeks
before I was due, just in case something
happened.”

“After two years and two babies, I
went into practice on my own, because I
did not want any problems that might
arise at home to be a burden on my asso-
ciates.” So she formed what she calls a
‘common-law partnership’ with another
pediatrician. Both maintain separate faci-
lities and financial arrangements, but
cover for each other when the need arises.

Dr. Coryllos’ chief concern is to find
enough time for everything. “My children
feel that they must compete with my pa-
tients for my attention and my husband
feels that he comes last.”

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 35

HYPNOTHERAPIST

Megumi Yamaguchi Shinoda ’28
Columbia P & S ’33
Psychiatry

Hypnotherapy is Megumi Shinoda’s
special interest, and she is a past president
of the Southern California Society of
Clinical Hypnosis. Though she started
out in general medical practice, for the
past 15 years she has worked chiefly
in psychiatry.

In 1970 she was on the task force of
the White House Conference on Aging, in
the Mental Health Division.

Dr. Shinoda was married to a corpora-
tion executive, who died in 1964. Her
daughter Jean is also a psychiatrist who
practices in San Francisco. A Jungian
analyst, Jean combines her practice
with a teaching post at the Langley
Porter branch of the University of Cal-
ifornia.

MOVING, AND MOVING ON

Marise Suss Gottlieb ’58
NYU Medical School ’62
MPH Harvard School of Public

Health

Epidemiology

Interest in the process of disease
led Marise Gottlieb to a career in medi-
cine, and to her special interest in the
distribution of disease determinants in
humans.

Under a federal program to study the
prevention of coroncU"y disease, she_spent
“two very hectic years” as principal
investigator at one of 20 Multiple Risk
Factor Intervention Trial centers. She
has held faculty posts in three medical
schools, and is now associate professor
of medicine at Tulane Medical School, as

. . . The professional married
woman is not treated fairly in
the tax scheme, as she is forced
to work at two jobs . . .

well as associate professor of epidemi-
ology at the Tulane School of Public
Health. She also serves on the Pulmonary
Disease Advisory Committee of the
National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Gottlieb’s continuing clinical inter-
est is in the hereditary factors leading to
diabetes mellitus, where she has made
some basic contributions. Currently she
is involved in environmental observations
concerning the epidemiology of cancer,
and Louisiana’s high cancer rate in
particular.

The necessity of managing a family
(two daughters, now 12 and 14) and
reestablishing herself professionally after
each of her husband’s five career moves
(he is now chairman of the Department
of Microbiology and Immunology at the
Tulane School of Medicine) has modified
her own career interests to some extent,
writes Marise Gottlieb. On the other

hand, these moves have presented her
with exciting opportunities she might
not have had.

Grateful that she completed her train-
ing before the children’s births, she says
that during their early years, live-in help
(now harder to get) was an “absolute
essential. . . . The professional married
woman is not treated fairly in the tax
scheme, as she is forced to work at two
jobs. A great deal of fortitude is neces-
sary to persist under the current system.”

Dr. Gottlieb reports strong encourage-
ment from her male colleagues, who
would not hear of her quitting, and
believes her work has had a positive
effect on her daughters, both of whom
are high achievers.

“Barnard’s contribution to my success
is more notable now, when I believe I
attribute high standards of excellence to
my college training. However, these very
standards can be defeating during early
career stages if they are unaccompanied
by a large share of self-confidence.”
She says of the faculty: “(They) looked
at medicine through the very narrow
point of view of practice. Medicine is
very broad; it has many dimensions.

. . . Medicine is very broad; it
has many dimensions. Practice
is only one factor ...

Practice is only one factor, but under-
standing the end result of efforts of
research and administration— people— is
most important.”

THYROID SPECIALIST

Sophie Andrews Root ’14
Cornell Medical School ’19
Endocrinology

Though Sophie Root retired from
practice at the end of 1974, it was nearly
two years later that she gave up her work
at the Hartford Hospital. On that occa-
sion, the Hartford Courant wrote up her
career.

“Dr. Sophie Root, the petite, 81-year-
old thyroid specialist, who was the first
woman on the Hartford Hospital phy-
sicians’ staff, has retired. Dr. Root,
who had a private practice next to her
home on North Main Street for 40 years
. . . married a former Cornell classmate
and took out 14 years to raise a family
of four (one of whom became a doctor
and one a nurse).

“In 1934, after her husband Maurice
encouraged her to study endocrinology.
Dr. Root began commuting weekly to
New York Hospital. For 15 years she
attended conferences and worked in
clinics there. As a consultant for the
Institute of Living, Dr. Root found
she could effectively treat hypothyroid
patients who were psychotic, and
emotionally unstable teenagers with
simple goiters.

“At the Newington Children’s Hos-
pital where she worked as a consultant
for 25 years and the American School
for the Deaf, Dr. Root discovered that
90 of the children had some enlargement
of the thyroid gland. She said that after
treatment ‘the house mothers were
overjoyed because most of the three-
and four-year-olds, sleeping less soundly,
stopped wetting their beds.’ (In 1958
she published a report on her treatment

of Cushing’s syndrome by removal of
adrenal cortex tumor.)

“Dr. Root said she encountered no
obstacles as a woman medical student
years ago. At Hartford Hospital, she
tried to be ‘diplomatic,’ she said. And
the doctor’s secret to her long life?
‘Sensible living, a proper diet and thy-
roid hormone which I take every day.’ ’’

EMINENT PATHOLOGIST

Eunice Sterling Waters '28

U of Rochester Medical School ‘33

Pathology

“Teaching has always been a sizable
proportion of my work,” writes Eunice

Waters. Until her retirement last year,
she served for nearly a quarter of a
century as Director of Laboratories for
Napa State Hospital, and later as a
“retired consultant.”

Before settling in California, where
her late husband was a rancher, she held
hospital appointments in England, and
later worked in Louisville, KY, where
she served at the School of Laboratory
Technique, State Board of Health,
directed the Diagnostic Laboratory, and
was associate professor of pathology
at the U of Louisville for over 10 years.

Her many appointments and offices
held are listed in the fifth edition of
“Who’s Who of American Women,”
including the presidency of the Napa
Interagency Health Associations and the
local Cancer Society. She is much in-
volved in community projects in the
Valley. Dr. Waters has three children.

OTHER PATHS:

Three Careers in Health Sciences

A review of Barnard alumnae in the
medical sciences must be a partial one
at best if it includes no reference to the
extensive contributions of those who do
not hold M. D. degrees. Since the full
story of their work would fill at least
another whole issue, this brief account
of three distinguished lives will, we hope,
stand in for all those others whose
service to human well-being lies along
different paths.

REHABILITATION IN INDIA

Mrs. Kamala Vishnu Nimbkar
(Elizabeth Lundy ’26)
Rehabilitation

Known as “the mother of rehabilita-
tion in India,” Kamala Nimbkar has
made the cause of the handicapped of
Asia a life work. In 1973 she received the
Albert Lasker Award “for her inter-
national and national work in rehabili-
tation.”

She went to India in 1930 to spend
some time in Gandhi’s ashram. Married
to Vishnu R. Nimbkar, she made India
her home and raised a family there. In
1945 she came to study occupational
therapy at the University of Pennsylvania,
so that she could establish it as a profes-
sion in India. At her own expense she
founded, in Bombay, the first school
of occupational therapy in all Asia;
later a second school was founded in
Nagpur.

Over the years Mrs. Nimbkar has been
tireless in stimulating the progress of
rehabilitation work in her adopted
country; as trustee of the Nimbkar
Rehabilitation Trust and the Helen Keller
Trust of Delhi, as founder and president
of the Indian Society for Rehabilitation
of the Handicapped, as founder and
editor of the Journal of Rehabilitation
in Asia. Now well into her 70’s, she still
writes and speaks on the subject and just
last year completed a survey of 600
institutions for the handicapped in India.

Mrs. Nimbkar’s family too has been
deeply involved in public service. Her

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 37

husband, an engineer, served as president
of a health institute that serves bl
villages, and headed the Bharat Education
Society. One of their sons is an agri-
culturist who has made a considerable
contribution to the green revolution by
way of hybrid seeds.

BIOCHEMISTRY PROFESSOR

Beatrice Kassell (Friedman) ’31
PhD Columbia
Biochemistry

Lack of an MD has not prevented
Beatrice Kassell from rising to full profes-
sorship at the Medical College of Wis-
consin in Milwaukee, one of the very few
women to reach this rank in any medical
school in the United States. She and her
husband. Dr. Harris L. Friedman, spent
a recent sabbatical year at the Centre
de Biochimie at the University of Nice
in France.

Our latest news of Dr. Kassell reached
us via a letter from her daughter, who
wrote: “My mother is too modest to ever
write in news of herself, but I am proud
of her and hence will update you on her
considerable accomplishments.” The
last time Dr. Kassell was written up in
the alumnae magazine, she was deep in
research in the chemistry of proteolytic
enzymes and inhibitors.

Ill

SICKLE CELL RESEARCH

Rose Grundfest Schneider ’29
MA, Harvard Medical School ’33 in
Bacteriology & Immunology
PhD, Cornell Medical College ’37
in Pathology

Rose Schneider joined the faculty of
the University of Texas Medical Branch
in 1942, and has risen to the rank of
research professor of pediatrics and
professor in the Department of Human
Biological Chemistry and Genetics. She

has devoted herself to hematology re-
search and since 1950 has held a US
Public Health Service grant to explore
hemoglobin variants in relation to disease.
Her formidable list of publications (close
to 80 titles) describes many contributions
to research in sickle cell anemia and
other hemoglobin abnormalities.

Her wit matches her erudition, as
evidenced by the following excerpts
from a reminiscence she wrote last year.
Published in Trends in Biochemical
Sciences, a journal of the International
Union of Biochemistry, the article is
entitled “How I Became a Harvard
Person.”

“Having graduated from college during
the depression, I lacked the money to go
on to graduate school, and gladly ac-
cepted a job as technologist in the serol-
ogy laboratory of the bacteriology
department of a large medical center. I
had a vague thought that the job might
lead to a career in medical bacteriology.
Anyway, the working conditions and
salary were good, and the woman who
was to be my supervisor and sole com-
panion seemed amiable. Best of all, the
affiliation with a large medical school
promised stimulating contacts . . . .”

“The job consisted of distributing
measured amounts of several solutions
into rows of identical-looking test tubes,
then incubating them and recording the
formation of a precipitate. Today such
tasks are largely automated; at that
time I was the automaton ....

“The mindlessness of the work had
become intolerable, and the thought of
graduate school irresistable. I saved my
money, applied to the bacteriology
departments of several medical schools,
and at the beginning of the next year,

I entered Harvard, or rather Radcliffe,
since Harvard in those days did not
admit women.

Harvard Medical School was an excit-
ing new world— of course almost ex-
clusively male. I was told that it would
never admit women, because years
before it had accepted a large sum of
money for the Anatomy Department
from a donor who stipulated that women
never be allowed to enter it. Unthinkable
though it now seems, we few women
students accepted this pronouncement
without protest ....

“During the three years I worked
towards my MA degree (from Radcliffe)

I came in contact with some of the most
brilliant minds in medical science— and
some of the most chauvinistic; some
of the most urbane— and the most pro-
vincial. Their one point of agreement
was on the almost divine importance
of Harvard! . . .

“I don’t know how they managed to
thwart the misogynous donor of the
Anatomy Department, but in 1945
Harvard finally admitted women— one
of the last large universities in the US
to do so. Yale, for example, had al-
ready capitulated by 1929. Years later,
at the University of Texas, I undertook
to write a play for an anniversary cele-
bration and I learned that many west-
ern medical schools had admitted wom-
en from the start. Texas had done so
in 1893. I wrote a skit, in which women
medical students sang, ‘The back of my
hand to Harvard, and I don’t even care
for Yale. I’ll be a doctor here at Texas,
even though I am female.’

“In presenting my academic cre-
dentials, I always used to say that my
MA degree was from Radcliffe, but some
years ago, I received a letter from the
University administration informing
me that I could now say my degree was
from Harvard. If this suggests a bit of
‘chuzpeh,’ you must remember that
Harvard men would never recognize
that quality in themselves; and if they
ever recognized it in others they would
call it ‘hubris.’ Anyway retroactively,

I became a Harvard person!”

Reproduced by permission from “Trends in
Biochemical Sciences” vol. 1 No. 10, published
by Elsevier/North Holland Biomedical Press for
the International Union of Biochemistry.

THE BARNARD COLLEGE CLUB
of New York, Inc.

Cordially invites all Alumnae
their families and friends to

AN OPEN HOUSE RECEPTION

Sunday, November 20, 1977

at the Club Rooms
Berkshire Hotel
Suite 1806
21 East 52nd Street
New York, N. Y.

Multidimensional Psyckiatrist

by Ann Ruth Turkel '47

Reprinted with permission from the NYSDB
Bulletin.

Women in psychiatry have always seen
themselves as equal to their male col-
leagues. About five years ago, I heard a
female psychiatrist say that any woman
in this field who said she had never ex-
perienced discrimination was walking
around with blinders on. As a multi-
dimensional woman, comfortable in my
roles as therapist, wife and mother, I
vigorously disputed her statement. Who
are more enlightened than psychiatrists?
But the increasing awareness of the
feminist movement finally reached me
and I, too, opened my eyes and began to
view my professional relationships
differently.

The changes in my attitude toward
my own experiences have helped me to
understand my patients better as they,
too, experience sexism. Yet I have a
new appreciation of how difficult it is
to alter one’s attitudes, let alone one’s
behavior. For example, I attended a
psychiatric meeting last year at which
a male analyst and his female colleague
were offering a relaxation therapy dem-
onstration. When my husband and I
entered the conference room, the male
analyst politely informed us that he did
not allow couples to attend together and
asked me to leave. Ever attuned to the
need of women in medicine to be com-
pliant and know their place, I obediently
left. A few years ago, however, I would
not even have noticed anything amiss.

All medical students have to develop
identities as physicians but the women
have the additional task of defining
themselves in a predominantly mascu-
line field. I try to imagine myself in
today’s medical school class in which
twenty-two per cent are women. My
class had three women at the onset.
Much of my difficulty in integrating my
feminity and my professionalism would
have been minimized had I had more
role models to emulate. But the faculty,
like the student body, had few women
and none who ever thought of counsel-
ing us. My own attitude used to be that

this was a private, personal struggle and
so I never discussed my identity prob-
lems until I became a member of a study
group of women analysts.

During my training, I became aware
of the different ways women students
adapted to handling inappropriate re-
actions to them. Some became overly
feminine, helpless and seductive. Others
denied their femininity and appeared
very masculine. During my first two
years, I experienced much abrasiveness
and much teasing from my classmates.
They often dwelled on the “fact” that
I had taken the place of a male student.
As time passed and I remained, while a
goodly number of the men failed or left,
this talk abated and I began to feel
accepted. My social life was busy and
I enjoyed being one of the few women
in this male environment. The price
I paid for this, however, was that wo-
men who did not have careers resented
me because I had more interests to
share with the men. In social gatherings,

I was often the focus of a group other-
wise exclusively male. I pretended not
to notice the hostility of the excluded
women.

The clinical years were much more
rewarding. I was comfortable in the
role of caretaker and I found that pa-
tients viewed me as a woman with
whom they could regress as with a
mother figure, thus less threatening
than a male extern. However, I could
never succumb to the temptation to be
unprepared or invisible for classes as the
professors invariably called upon me.

The greatest compliment I received
was when an instructor or peer would
call me as good as a man, for really
working harder. I did my internship in
a hospital which had the unheard of
distinction of having 2.5 per cent of its
house staff women. One of the directors
stated that this was quite deliberate, for
they knew how much we needed to
prove ourselves. It is amusing now but
we were angry then, when despite our
numbers and positions of responsibility,
we found ourselves overprotected by
the hospital administrators. The male

Pe rson

interns and residents could have women
visitors at any time but we, even those
with husbands, were denied the right
to receive them at all.

In my early years in psychiatry, I
zealously protected myself from the
scurrilous epithet my colleagues fre-
quently used about a competent wo-
man: “a castrating female.” I had man-
aged to overcome society’s limitations
on female potential yet I had unfortu-
nately internalized its devaluation of
women as competent persons. I ex-
pected and received criticism and rejec-
tion from non-professional women,
perhaps as a projection of my own
critical attitude toward them and as
punishment for becoming not only dif-
ferent but admired by their spouses for
my proficiency in many areas, includ-
ing homemaking. The same intensity
and strivings which I had applied to
medicine were devoted to domesticity.

It was necessary to be super-wife, super-
mother as well as psychiatrist and psy-
choanalyst.

My professional career has been
productive and fulfilling. Yet I realize
it has been hampered not just by male
chauvinist colleagues but also by my
own adaptations to them, which have
limited my freedom of expression and
behavior. Anxiety is still experienced in
situations where there is open competi-
tion with men. There is the ever-present
danger of confusing assertion with
aggression.

Our society is struggling with many
changes in male-female relationships. Wo-
men are different from men— but equal
to them. As psychiatrists, we have a duty
to assist both sexes in understanding the
principle of equality of the sexes.

Ann Ruth Turkel is a supervising
analyst at the William Alanson White
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis,
and Psychology, a fellow of the American
Academy of Psychoanalysis, an associate
in clinical psychiatry at Columbia Uni-
versity, and an associate editor of the
NYSDB Bulletin. She is married to a
psychiatrist and has one daughter of 13.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 39

Vtae III

MEDICINE AND MATERNITY

Marjorie Rosenblum(Scandizzo ) ’61
Downstate Medical College ’69
Pediatrics

Marjorie Rosenblum’s experiences in
training illustrate the inconsistent and
confusing attitudes women physicians
must live with. She had begun a pedi-
atrics internship at Los Angeles Children’s
Hospital when she married a fellow
Downstate graduate who was interning
in New York. Though she gave the
director 1 1 months’ notice of her plans
to return to New York after fulfilling
her one-year contract, he felt she was not
meeting her obligations— to her mind,
a clearly anti-female-physicians attitude.

Shortly after being accepted for a
pediatric residency at Bellevue, she
discovered she was pregnant. Though
she fully expected her contract to be
nullified, the program director’s reply
to her trepidant letter began, “Congratu-
lations ....’’ She was cheerfully granted
a month’s maternity leave with pay for
both the children she bore during her
three-year residency there.

Yet when the same situation de-
veloped during her present tenure with
Permanente Medical Group in San Jose,
CA, the request for leave caused a mild
hassle (was she pregnant when hired?)—
and only after Dr. Rosenblum raised the
issue of “discrimination’’ was she granted
a month’s leave.

The Scandizzos’ Army experience
was even more irrational. In 1973 Dr.
Rosenblum joined the Army with her
husband John, “who by virtue of the Ber-
ry Plan was obligated to two years of mil-
itary service. We came to Fort Ord, both
as majors in the Army Medical Corps. I
worked five days a week and every third
night and third weekend day. We received
no special considerations (we had been
promised day care) and found conditions
not suited to the raising of two children
with both parents working. Family life

suffered— I complained— I was offered
a hardship discharge after a total of
five months. The medical corps was very
anti-female because they had met so few
female physicians and because they
had obsolete rules which could not be
compromised. I worked the next year
and a half at Fort Ord as a civilian
pediatrician, without a uniform, 9 to 5,
Monday thru Friday, at double pay.
Who needed the GI benefits! ’’

Since 1975 the couple has worked at
Permanente, and Dr. Rosenblum is also
involved with the School Advisory
Committee, though night conferences
are difficult for a working mother.
Finding good baby sitters remains their
major problem.

AN INTREPID SURVIVOR

Constance Friess (Cooper) ’28
Cornell Medical College ’32
General Medicine

Dr. Friess’ career has been carried
on in the face of many family and health
difficulties. After marrying a young
surgeon the year she completed her
medical training, she began a psychiatric
internship at Johns Hopkins, but was
forced to drop out because of tubercu-
losis. After her recovery, she had two
children early in World War II, and her
husband was stationed at a hospital
in England. “Those were difficult years
for me,” Dr. Friess writes, “and ulti-
mately led to my divorce in 1961. My life
was a three-ring circus with patients,
children and husband competing for my
time.”

. . . I have loved the practice of
medicine and think it is one of
the greatest privileges anyone
could be granted . . .

She carried on a large and busy prac-
tice and taught at Cornell Medical School,
where she is an associate professor of
clinical medicine, until 1971, when
bowel cancer dictated a curtailment of

activity. Since giving up her practice.
Dr. Friess has devoted herself to care of
the elderly in their homes, in her New
York neighborhood, and to treating local
adolescents. She has recently survived a
masectomy and is still undaunted. “I
have been somewhat busier than I would
wish but 1 have loved the practice of
medicine and think it one of the greatest
privileges anyone could be granted.”

MANY CHALLENGES MET:

A Doctor Tells the Inside Story

Anne Hendon Bernstein ’58
Einstein College of Medicine ’62
Psychoanalytic medicine

After graduating from Barnard in 1958,
having been married for a year and a half,
I studied medicine at the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
in New York City. While I was a third-
year student there, my first daughter, Ju-
lie, was born. I thought Td “aimed” her
for the holiday recess but she wasn’t anx-
ious to buck the winter weather and
waited until January 28th to appear. I
had to hide this pregnancy during my
clinical clerkship on the Medical Service
lest I be required to take a leave of ab-
sence. Just prior to her birth, I was a
clerk on the Obstetrics and Gynecology
Service where there were no “on call”
rooms for women. I therefore slept in one
of the labor rooms. Imagine my indigna-
tion when I awakened one night in time
to hear the chief resident say to his night
house staff, in reference to all the ladies,
myself included, in the labor suite,
“Don’t worry, we’ll give them pitocin (a
drug to induce delivery) and we’ll be in
bed by midnight.”

I had been scheduled to deliver my
baby in a private hospital. One day a
week later when it was apparent that I’d
be snowed in at the city hospital while on
duty, I called my husband in a panic and

said, “What will I do if I go into labor?”
He gently reminded me that, after all, I
was in a hospital, and he guessed I’d
manage.

Securely stitched up, four days after
Julie’s birth, I returned to my rotation on
the Neurology Service so as not to have
to make up this rotation over the summer.
My attending physician’s greeting was,
“Well, welcome back Mrs. Bernstein; try
not to look as if you were walking on
eggs.” Finishing school while Julie was a
baby was easy because I had the baby
nurse of my own infancy to look after
her. Besides my husband adored her and

. . . We’d have perished sooner
than ask our male colleagues , . .
for any help beyond the barest
call of duty . . .

took her everywhere with him, often
bringing her to dinner the nights and
weekends I was on duty.

When I took a Pediatric Internship at
the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, I
was one of three female pregnant interns.
The staff was chagrined. The best defense
against having to do our work for us, and
fill in during the absences they imagined
we’d have, was a total offense. They put
the three of us together on one ward, ef-
fectively declaring war. We met the chal-
lenge; we did for each other and helped
each other. We took admissions out of
strict turn and according to our estimate
of the best distribution of work load.
We’d have perished sooner than ask our
male colleagues, even those residents as-
signed to oversee us, for any help beyond
the barest call of duty. We became excel-
lent at procedures and ran such an effici-
ent operation that the men came to us,
tails between their legs, asking our help
and counsel. After the first three months,
we had proved ourselves and it was all
downhill.

Neither did Laura decide to oblige me
by being born during the vacation I’d
planned between internship and residency.
So I arrived at my residency in Psychiatry
at Mount Sinai Hospital looking like “any
minute.” Fortunately, that residency
started with a month of almost purely
didactic work so I could take a few days
off to deliver Laura knowing that my col-

leagues would take notes and get the
reading assignments for me.

One of the most frightening experien-
ces in my life as a physician occurred not
in chaotic emergency rooms of large city
hospitals where I had trained, but in the
nursery of the ward where Laura and I
spent the post-delivery period. The night
she was born, I awakened to go to the
bathroom some distance down the hall. I
was alerted by a slapping sound and
peered into the newborn nursery to see
an aide holding a limp and blue infant up-
side down and trying to get it breathing. I
ran, frantically reaching into my robe for
my stethoscope and a length of suction
tubing as if I had been in uniform. Horror
of horrors, there was no suction equip-
ment in the nursery either! I sucked the
mucous out of the infant’s mouth with
my own, gave it closed chest massage, and
by the time the cardiac arrest team— which
I had yelled for the nurse to summon— ar-
rived, the baby was pink and breathing.
Every physician’s nightmare is being called
to an emergency with no equipment or
help at hand. The next morning I wan-
dered into the lounge to observe the ses-
sion for new mothers on feeding, diaper-
ing and bathing babies. Unknown to me,
the whole ward had heard the story of
the night before. All the new mothers
stood up and began to applaud and this
super doctor, now mother of two, dis-
solved in tears.

The staff of the Mount Sinai Depart-
ment of Psychiatry was most supportive
of me in my roles of physician, wife and
mother. Though no special concessions
were made, I could often volunteer to
work Saturday nights for the men who
wished to be free to date, in exchange for
whole weekend days when I preferred to
be with my family. When some doubt
arose in my mind about accepting the
chief residency, I was assured of every-
one’s help and support. My husband, a
biomedical engineer who had stood solid-
ly behind me, insisted that I give it a try.
He seemed to manage as easily in my ab-
sence with two little girls as with one.

. . . Every physician’s nightmare
is being called to an emergency
with no equipment or help at
hand . . .

. . . In June 1966 I entered the
Woman’s Medical College (now
The Medical College) of Pennsyl-
vania . . . While in medical school
and during my training, I never
experienced negative feelings
towards me about women in
medicine. Much of this, I believe,
is related to the fact that I at-
tended a woman’s medical college,
where everyone was equal, where
competition was kept minimal
but yet standards were high, and
where it was shown every day
that women, femininity, medi-
cine, careers, husbands, and chil-
dren can all exist happily and
healthily in the same household.
The college no longer exists as a
woman’s medical college. I consi-
der myself quite fortunate to
have been one of the women in
medicine to have experienced
the philosophy and teachings of
the college, as these have in-
fluenced many of my ideas and
attitudes about my role as a
woman in medicine. . .

—Laura Inselman ( Guy) ’66

At the end of my residency, I was preg-
nant with my third child. I had planned a
combination part-time private practice,
part-time teaching, and psychoanalytic
training at the Columbia University Clinic
for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.
My son Jeff, born in 1966, seemed to fit
into the busy pattern of our lives. Upon
graduation from the Psychoanalytic Cli-
nic, I prepared for my specialty boards in
psychiatry. Five weeks before I was to
take them, while the girls were at camp
and my husband, Jeff and I were vaca-
tioning on Long Island, tragedy struck, in
the form of a beach umbrella thrust deep
into my chest by a strong gust of wind.
Extensive surgery put humpty dumpty
together again. The boards for which I

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 41

had prepared for so many months, as well
as the faculty position awaiting me at the
Columbia College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, compelled my recovery. My major
loss was the fourth child I had planned on
having to celebrate passing the boards.

My schedule in the last seven years has
been: half a day in full-time private prac-
tice in Manhattan, at home with children
when they return from school, and even-
ings seeing patients in the office attached
to our home. I have published several pa-
pers, am a member of many professional
associations— most notably, the American
Psychoanalytic Association— and am edi-
tor of the Bulletin of the NY Association
for Psychoanalytic Medicine. In addition,
I teach medical students at P & S, super-
vise residents at Psychiatric Institute and
teach candidates at the Psychoanalytic
Clinic where 1 also serve on two faculty
committees. During the last two years, I
have offered an intersession internship to
Barnard pre-medical students.

Julie, now 16, is first in her high
school class and will attend college this
September. Her major interest is in sci-
ence. Laura, 13, will enter high school in
the fall, and Jeff, now 10, is in the fifth
grade. My husband’s current interest is in
establishing the values of tight control of
blood sugar in Diabetes Mellitus. He is
engaged in research in this area in addi-
tion to serving as the vice president of a
small public corporation. We are also the
parents of three dogs, one wolf and a cat.
And, oh yes, after some additional surg-
gery on my chest, 1 am now expecting
our fourth child.

As I look back on my Barnard days
now, I have several very keen memories.
When President McIntosh addressed a
meeting of 75 freshmen pre-med students,
she told us medicine was not just good
grades in science, and recommended we
all try some hospital volunteer work. My
experience in doing this firmly cemented
my determination to be a physician.

The day I appeared as a sophomore in
my General Chemistry class, wearing an
engagement ring, the elderly and stately
professor announced aloud that it was
clear that I couldn’t be serious about
medicine and that she, as chairman of the
pre-medical committee, would see that I
was not recommended for medical school.
The following year, my Organic Chemis-
try professor was impressed that I took
the midterm upon return from my honey-

moon and did exceedingly well. With her
help, and the inspired support of my ma-
jor advisor, I was recommended. I am
very grateful that despite raised eyebrows
I was allowed to concentrate heavily in
languages, art and sociology, skipping the
“required” mathematics, qualitative and
quantitative chemistry. The medical
schools selected me anyway. 1 learned
later what I needed of these subjects. My
liberal arts background is still a source of
joy and pleasure to me. . .

AN MD AT FORTY

Louise Despert ’28
NYU Medical School ’32
Child psychiatry

Daughter of an architect at Versailles,
Louise Despert lost her mother, her
fiance and a brother-in-law within a
month in the first year of World War I.
During nursing service at an evacuation
center in Rouen, she came to know
American Red Cross workers, and after
the war came to America for several
years. Torn between interest in art and
medicine, she first returned to Paris
to study painting and sculpture, then
determined to qualify for medical school
and came to Barnard as a pre-med stu-
dent. She was 40 when she earned her
MD, one of three women graduating.

The emotional problems of children
have been her absorbing interest. She
taught psychiatry at Cornell Medical
School for 23 years, retiring in 1960
as associate professor and associate
attending at NY Hospital. She has pub-
lished more than 50 articles and books
on child psychiatry, the latest being
“The Inner Voices of Children” in
1975. Retirement, writes Dr. Despert,
“does not mean the end of medical
activity.” She continued in medical
practice and spent summers in an intense
program of lectures through Europe

. . . Retirement does not
mean the end of medical
activity . . .

and in South America. Art remains an
absorbing interest, and her most recent
publication is “The Satirical Drawings of
Doctor Despert.”

THE COST OF DISCRIMINATION

Harriet Hanley ’45
NY Medical College ’50
Pediatrics

I decided on pediatrics [writes Dr.
Hanley] because it seemed appropriate
for a woman. Back in those days I felt a
conflict in being a woman in a man’s
role. I also was prejudiced against women
doctors, as I believe almost everyone is,
unless they have an exceptional up-
bringing, or until they overcome it
intellectually.

Since completing residency I have
been in private solo practice of pedi-
atrics in South Bend, Indiana, a city,
including outlying areas, of about
200,000 people. I was married in 1956
and divorced four years later, and had
no children. I assumed all household
responsibilities plus working full time.
In those days, that’s the way it was.

I have found discrimination against
women doctors by other doctors, nurses,
and patients. It was very slow building
up a practice. For many years I made
less than my nurse. Even now, with all
the patients I can handle, I only make
about $18,000 a year. I also have a
part-time job as medical advisor to the
Council for the Retarded which pays
$11,000. In addition to the fact that
pediatricians make less them any other
specialty, I make less than most others
because I am honest and conscientious
beyond belief, which is how most
doctors would like to practice medicine
but can’t afford it because they have
a family. It costs money to give good
service. I hire one nurse more than I
really need, who spends almost full
time with patient education.

Once I am known to any one indi-
vidual, I am accepted. But still, many
patients come to me only as a second
choice if they cannot get an appointment
with a male pediatrician. Also, many
doctors refer patients to me only as

second choice. One pediatrician in
California referring a patient moving
to this area, copied names from the
Directory of the American Academy of
Pediatrics and included every man in the
list and omitted mine. I saw this list
when the mother brought her child to me
on referral from another patient. I’ve had
nurses question an order when it happens
they have never seen a man write a
similar order. I’ve had residents refuse
to take me at my word. I used to prove
my point by documenting it in the
literature, carrying texts and journals
to the hospital. I don’t do that any more.
When I was hired for my present part-
time position with the Council for the
Retarded it was to replace a male pedi-
atrician who was moving and whose
qualifications were the same as mine. He
was being paid $10,000 a year. They
initially offered me $7,000. With some
pressure from the man who was leaving
and resistance on my part, they finally
gave me equal pay. Even compliments
are left handed. “I’d like to introduce
you to Dr. Hanley. She’s an attribute
to her sex’’— good-even-if-she-is-a-woman
type remarks.

. . . Even though medicine is
sometimes . . . exhausting and
carries overwhelming respon-
sibility, it ... is so satisfying
that I cannot imagine ever want-
ing to do anything else . . .

If I were starting again, I would still
make the same choice. When women
college students ask my advice about
going into medicine, I always recommend
it enthusiastically. Even though it is
sometimes mentally and physically ex-
hausting and carries overwhelming
responsibility, it never lacks interest or
challenge, and is so satisfying that I
cannot imagine ever wanting to do
anything else.

TWO GENERATIONS

Julia Lichtenstein (Schwarzberg) ’19
Columbia P & S ’23
Internal medicine, emphasizing
pulmonary and cardiac problems

Jane Schwarzberg Ferber ’5 7
Columbia P & S ’61
Psychiatry

Dr. Julia Lichtenstein, past president
of the Women’s Medical Association of
New York City, formerly on the staff at
P & S, Bellevue, the Vanderbilt Clinic
and elsewhere, started quite a medical
trend in her family. Her daughter Jane
followed in her career footsteps. A
niece and a grandniece are also MD’s.
Another niece “has had an active career
in chemistry . . . and her daughter . . .
earned her PhD in genetics . . . and
married a British surgeon.’’

Dr. Lichtenstein is still in practice
at the Union Health Center operated
by the Int’l Ladies Garment Workers
Union. She writes of her private practice,
“My patients came from all walks of
life in the city and I was afforded the
opportunity to observe and share in
the many sides of life in New York,
the city to which I am deeply devoted.

“When I entered medical school the
first-year class had women students
amounting to 10% of the total. Now this
figure is up to 35%; this is a good trend.
It should be meaningful and valuable
for our country, the profession and for
women everywhere.”

Jane Ferber, after interning in pedi-
atrics, did a residence in psychiatry at
Einstein/Bronx Municipal Hospital, and
was a fellow in psychiatry at Montefiore
during 1966-1969. Since that time she
has worked in the field of family therapy
and crisis intervention, as well as doing
research in non-verbal communication
and kinesics, and later in alcohol abuse
and schizophrenia.

Now chief of service of the Sound
Shore District Community Mental Health
Service of Harlem Valley Psychiatric
Center in Westchester, she also serves as
assistant clinical professor of psychiatry
at Einstein College of Medicine. Married
to an MD and the mother of a son and
daughter, 13 and 10, Jane Ferber has
clearly taken as a role model the mother
who, she says, “remains an inspiration
of what a doctor should be.”

TIME OUT FOR MOTHERHOOD

Betty Teller W erksman ’59
Northwestern U Medical School ’67
Family practice

Betty Werksman interrupted her med-
ical study for three years while her
children were very young. She writes:
“Jerry and I were married while I was
still in college, and he had just graduated
from Columbia in 1957. He then went to
Columbia Law School ....

“Somehow ... I managed to graduate
from Barnard on time and even finished
a year at Einstein Medical College. But
two little ones and one on the way
proved too much for my energies ... I
took a leave of absence and in the mean-
time we moved to Chicago . . . .”

When her youngest child was four,
Betty Werksman entered the second-
year class at Northwestern University
Medical School. “I then sailed through,
being very grateful for healthy, happy
children and a loyal fan— my husband.

I graduated in 1967, interned and then
immediately took positions as a Doctor
in clinics, and then in Northwestern
University Health Center. I was biding
my time until the children were old
enough to accept the irregular, demand-
ing life of a family physician.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 43

“In 1972 I started a Family Practice
in a neighboring suburb and have been
getting busier and busier. My schedule is
full and demanding, but most reward-
ing. My family life has been exceptionally
satisfying, and all the sacrifices and
compromises I feel I made for the chil-
dren’s health and welfare have been well
worth it.

CHAMPION OF
ABUSED CHILDREN

Hendrika Bestebreurtje Cantwell ’44
U of Rochester Medical School ’49
Pediatrics

Our news of Hendrika Cantwell came
from her lawyer husband, who wrote us
because “Hennie is a modest type,” and
obviously because of his pride in her
contributions in the area of child abuse.
His letter details her training in Roches-
ter and at the Buffalo Children’s Hospital,
and their move to Denver, where their
three children were born. Until 1966 she
concentrated on her family, though she
passed her state boards and practised
part time as a school physician and in
well-baby clinics.

“From 1966 to 1975 she worked full
time in ‘Project Child,’ a program in
Denver which had as its purpose pedi-
atric care for indigent patients, (centered
in) Children’s Hospital in Denver ....
During that time she became an associate
professor of clinical medicine at the
University of Colorado School erf Medi-
cine ....

“In 1975 she became the first full-
time pediatrician for the Denver Depart-
ment of Social Services, a job that had
never existed. The job originated as a
result of an investigation of the handling
of child abuse in the Denver area by a
‘select committee’ ... on which she
served . . . but it went unfilled for more

. . . Too few people realize that
child abuse is at the root of
very violent crimes . . .

. . . I have never met an abusing
parent who didn’t want to do
well by their children . . .

than a year. Eventually Hennie ‘volun-
teered’ for what apparently was a job
that no one really wanted. She has been
extremely effective in it, spending the
bulk of her time on child abuse matters.
She currently serves on the Denver
Child Protection Team, a statutorily
constituted group with the responsi-
bility of investigating child abuse com-
plaints under Colorado’s law, and on the
Board of the Denver Chapter of Parents
Anonymous, a group . . . with the pur-
pose of helping abusing parents.

“She has lectured extensively on the
subject to civic and professional groups
. . . (and) is frequently in the local press
and television . . . .”

In a recent interview in the Rocky
Mountain News, Dr. Cantwell talked
about her views and the Parent Aide
program of volunteers started a year ago.
“Too few people realize,” she said, “that
child abuse is at the root of very violent
crimes. It has become a major childhood
illness, and its victims are going to be very
expensive the rest of their lives ....

“More money and time needs to be
devoted to break the victim-abuser-victim
cycle through which the children of
abusing parents in turn grow into adults
who may abuse their own children. A
study was done of 90 prisoners on
death row in Michigan and Texas and it
was discovered that every one of these
people had been abused as a child ....

“We are groping for different treat-
ment modalities— all of which have their
place— and looking to see what works.

We do know that abusing parents need
good-parent role models. I have never met
an abusing parent who didn’t want to or
intend to do well by their children. Since
a social worker may have a threatening
quality, it is felt that volunteer parent
aides ‘may be able to do some parenting
and be there in time of crisis.’ ”

Dr. Cantwell emphasized that “what
we have to teach young women is that
not everyone is able to be a good parent,
and if they are unable to care for their
children, they should relinquish them.”
Her own ability to combine career and

family concerns must make her a superla-
tive role model. William Cantwell gives
her highest marks, writing;

“Hennie’s solution for this very dif-
ficult problem was to concentrate all of
her attention on her children at the time
that she felt they needed it most. She
gradually phased into a more active
career as her children grew up ... by
locating wonderful full-time help ....
All the while that she has been pursuing
a medical career which has become
increasingly more demanding, she was
also an extremely supportive wife to a
very busy lawyer .... I think she was
always certain that ‘there would be time’
and never allowed the priorities which
she established for herself to become
confused.”

MAKING IT IN SURGERY

Nella Shapiro ’68

Einstein College of Medicine ’12

Surgery

“As the first female chief resident
and the only female attending surgeon
in the Montefiore-Einstein-Jacobi-North
Central Bronx complex, there have been
problems in gaining acceptance in an all-
male field. But now after four and a
half years, the problems related to my
being a woman are more irritating than
anything else.”

Dr. Shapiro was originally interested
in an ear, nose and throat specialty when,
during the prerequisite surgical intern-
ship, “I realized that I loved general
surgery and so I stayed and completed
my training as a surgeon.” She was the
first female to finish the residency pro-
gram under the current chief of surgery
at Montefiore Hospital.

“Barnard has my gratitude for insisting
on a well-rounded education,” she says.

... I have the background to en-
joy things outside of medicine . . .
because as an undergraduate I
was required to attain some
knowledge of the humanities . . .

“I feel I have the background to enjoy HIPPOCRATIC ROOTS

things outside of medicine partially
because as an undergraduate I was re-
quired to attain some knowledge of
the humanities.”

Gloria Marmar Warner '52
NYU Medical School ’59
Psychiatry, psychoanalysis

BUSY OCTOGENARIAN

Dorothea Curnow ’1 7
Columbia P & S ’21
General Medicine

Dorothea Curnow is the last surviving
member of the outstanding group of
1917 graduates who opened the doors of
P & S to women students. Now retired
from the staff of the Health Service at
Oklahoma State University in Stillwater,
she finds she’s busier than ever.

When Dr. Curnow finished her intern-
ship in Newark, she luckily inherited the
Brooklyn practice of an old friend, and
later in the decade became Chief of a
new Allergy Clinic at Brooklyn Hospital.
During the depression of the ’30s, the
Bureau of Charities asked her to set up a
Birth Control Clinic for poor married
women who were having too many
children— a bold move, since Margaret
Sanger had been taken to court for
opening such centers in New York only
a few years earlier.

In those days birth control consisted
of mechanical protection and antiseptic
Jellies, Dr. Curnow recalled in an inter-
view for a Stillwater paper. She remi-
nisced sbout the days “when all doctors
carried a little black bag, made house
calls and night calls, delivered all babies
at home, charged $2 for an office call
and never more than $3 for a house
call.” Even those modest fees were often
beyond the means of indigent patients,
who sought to pay with any service or
possession they could manage— from
hand-knitted afghans to heirloom silver-
ware. “Those were the days, too, when
doctors really cared about their patients.”
Dr. Curnow feels there’s a different
attitude now among some doctors.

After three busy decades in Brooklyn,
Dr. Curnow, feeling the call of “the Big
Sky Country,” answered an ad and took
a post at the then A & M Infirmary in
Stillwater— a move that turned into a
lifetime commitment.

“Since age two I wanted to be a
doctor,” writes Gloria Warner, and
indeed her life has been built around
medicine, with a father, a husband, a
father-in-law and a mother-in-law in
the field. One bonus is a supportive hus-
band and a life style that “replicates
his (and her) early life.”

Dr. Warner had to take a two-year
leave during medical school when her
husband was called into military service
and sent to Texas, but she used the
time to have the first of her four children
Reentering, she graduated with several
prizes, the top-ranking woman in her
class. She trained in medicine, surgery,
and gastroenterology (her husband’s
specialty) and did part-time general
practice before starting a psychiatric
residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital in 1963.

During the five years after her train-
ing, she worked there as staff psychiatrist
and rose through the academic ranks to
become assistant clinical professor at
the medical school; then trained as a
psychoanalyst. She now has a full-time
psychoanalytic practice, is clinical as-
sistant professor of psychiatry at Cornell
Medical College-New York Hospital and
at the Payne Whitney Clinic. She is also
involved in a variety of research and has
published a number of papers.

Though she has amply proved that
family and professional life can be
successfully coordinated, Gloria Warner
is well aware of the difficulties involved,
“the same problems any full-time work-
ing mother . . . experiences.” One has
to learn to “cope with multiple roles”
and handle crises as quickly and as well
as possible. “You have to work hard.

have a helping husband, and take time
off when necessary but keep it to a
minimum. You must be prepared to pay
for expert household help,” without
which, she says, “it cannot be done.”

She is glad to see, as a medical school
teacher, “an evolution towards more
acceptance of women and more under-
standing by the males of their split
roles of mothering and doctoring.”
In her school days, when there were
perhaps six women in a class of 140,
no such allowances were made. But
now, with 20-40% women in a class,
a happier period of more comradeship
and equal opportunity is setting in.
Dr. Warner believes.

JUGGLING MANY ROLES

Audrey Cox King ’47
SUNY Downstate ’51
Pediatrics

Audrey King juggles medical, family
and community responsibilities and
writes, “Life is never dull and if the
kids are ever quiet our five cats take
up the slack. Generally I work 20 hours
a week on medical matters . . . .”

Concerned with mental retardation,
learning disabilities and neurology. Dr.
King is a pediatric consultant with the
Bureau of Crippled Children in Rich-
mond, VA. In addition she is a clinical
instructor in pediatrics at the Medical
College of VA.

Married to a radiologist, and the
mother of three energetic children— a
daughter of 20, and two boys of 17 and
13— Audrey King’s annual Christmas
letters paint a picture of “tumultuous”
and happy family living filled with
sailing, skiing, camping, and frequent
travel. Medicine may not take a back
seat in the King life style, but obviously
neither do family pursuits.

The biggest problem (not unusual
nowadays) is lack of help, Audrey King
complains. “Haven’t had a maid for
one and a half years .... Have been
jumping from crisis to crisis.” Somehow,
though, she found time this year to
serve as Circle Chairman for her church.
An expert juggler, obviously.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 45

AN IDEALIST IN HER
SEVENTIES

Isabel M. London ’22
Cornell Medical Center ’28
Peripheral vascular diseases &
gerontology

“I’ve been lucky that I’ve always
managed to be able to give time to
people. But this is dying out today in
medicine. Doctors’ attitudes are changing.
I’m the way I am because I’m old . . .1
like having my office in my home. I
hate these new doctors’ offices that look
like business offices. It makes a practice
look like a business and it should be so
much more.”

Thus does Dr. London, still engaged
in full practice in her seventies and still
youthfully idealistic, look upon the

. . . Doctors are going to be forced
to take notice of this field (geron-
tology) more and more . . .

changing medical world. However, she is
not without alternatives. As medical
director of the Home Care Program at
Middlesex Hospital in New Jersey, Dr.
London has devised methods for the care
of patients who have come home from
the hospital but still require medical
attention. “It’s a very exciting concept
and it should be expanded all over the
country,” she says. “More people could
be cared for, it’s less costly than a long
hospital stay and certainly less unpleasant
for the individual patient.”

Still working as a specialist in circula-
tory problems at three hospitals. Dr.
London also has turned to gerontology.
She is medical director at two nursing
homes and says, “Doctors are going to
be forced to take notice of this field
more and more .... In other societies
(the elderly) are respected for their ex-
perience. But not here. I would like to
see the whole aspect of medicine turn
in that direction.”

Dr. London’s father was Meyer
London, former U. S. Congressman and

Miltank Ckair

New Hori

izons in

Healtk Sciences

by Suzanne Wiedel Pace ’66

Nicholas Rango, M. D., has been
appointed as Barnard’s first Milbank
Professor of Health and Society. The new
professorship was endowed by the Mil-
bank Memorial Fund and is named for
Samuel R. Milbank, the treasurer of the
College’s Board of Trustees.

A sociologist as well as a physician.
Dr. Rango will establish a program for
upperclassmen wishing to enrich their
understanding of the health sciences.
Classes are to begin in the fall of 1978.

The new program will interweave the
subject matter and the intellectual
methods of bio-medical and social
sciences. The curriculum will include two
lines of courses on human aging and
public health. Interdisciplinary offerings
from the departments of anthropology,
history, philosophy, economics and
sociology are anticipated. In addition,
selected topics such as medical themes in
world literature and psychoanalytical
theory will be considered.

There will also be an annual series of
Milbank Lectures which will focus on
major individual issues affecting both
medicine and society.

“I hope to set up a program in which
the dialogue is not restricted by formal
academic barriers; I am a generalist rather
than a specialist, an integrationist rather
than a segregationist,” Dr. Rango said
recently.

Born in Youngstown, Ohio, 33 years
ago. Dr. Rango graduated from the
Northwestern University Medical School
in 1970 and completed his internship and
residency at the Cook County Hospital in
Chicago. He is currently serving as a
Robert Woods Johnson Clinical Fellow in
the department of internal medicine at
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center
while studying for a PhD in Columbia
University’s sociology department, where
he is working closely with University
Professor Robert K. Merton.

Dr. Rango, who has been active in
numerous medical organizations, was
president of the Cook County Hospital’s
Residents and Interns Association in
1972-73. In that capacity he appeared
before a Senate sub-committee on health,
chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
and gave his views about the role of
public hospitals.

WHITE HOUSE FELLOWSHIPS

The fourteenth nationwide competi-
tion for White House Fellowships has
been announced. It offers a year of first-
hand high-level employment in the fed-
eral government, as special assistants to
the vice president, cabinet secretaries, and
principal members of the White House
staff. The Fellows also participate in an
extensive seminar program of off-the-

trade union leader, who fostered the
idealistic atmosphere in which she was
raised. She recalls, “In those days it was
a time of innocence and hope. So dif-
ferent from today. . . . Neither of my
parents was interested in making money
Both felt that the main thing was to do
the best they could for those who had
less.”

record sessions with top government and
private sector leaders, journalists, scholars
and foreign officials.

There is no occupational restriction.
Fellows have included scholars, engineers,
corporate employees, doctors, architects,
local public officials, lawyers, oceano-
graphers, a policeman and a symphony
conductor. Proven leadership, intellectual
and professional ability, high motivation,
and a commitment to community and
nation are the broad criteria employed in
the selection process.

Application materials and additional
information may be obtained from The
President’s Commission on White House
Fellowships, Washington, D. C. 20415 or
by calling 202-653-6263. Requests for
applications must be postmarked no later
than November 15, 1977.

oordinator^s

Midwif ing a Special Issue on Medicine

Once upon a time in 1974, Editor
Nora Percival is lunching with History
Professor Annette Kar Baxter, who hap-
pens to mention (in some connection,
then germane but since forgotten) the
outstanding record Barnard’s alumnae
doctors have achieved— a subject Nora
had also considered.

During 1976, certain research comes
to light suggesting that an unusually high
percentage of American women physi-
cians are Barnard alumnae. No one’s sur-
prised. Nora’s classmate Clementene
Walker Wheeler happens to mention a
story she did for the alumnae magazine
in 1955 on “Barnard Women in White” . . .

The theme is discussed briefly by the
editorial board in June of 1976, and by
October a tentative table of contents is
emerging. (Shari Lewis, Margaret Zweig,
Betty Binns, Terry Weeks, and Joyce
Keifetz volunteer ideas and time; Joan
McCulloch volunteers to do a story.)

Lots of synergy on the board, but as
usual no extra money in the budget. Can
we find interns to help with the research?
(Two, Devora Steinmetz ’80 and Margaret
O’Connell ’78 are eventually recruited.)
Helen McIntyre, attending ex officio, sug-
gests we petition the alumnae Board of
Directors for extra funds. Great idea.
Deborah Reich says she’ll serve as coordi-
nator.

Nora, Deborah, and Daniel Neal (edi-
torial assistant) begin drafting a suitable
document. This group (“the Triumvirate,”
Daniel calls it) produces a fourteen-page
proposal . . . which gets the Board’s okay.

Nora’s fleshing out her vision of the
end result; the Triumvirate is working on
data collection. Our notice in the maga-

zine begins to bring in responses . . . and
six letters are on hand in time for the
February meeting of the editorial board.
Progress reports. The table of contents is
reviewed again. (Nora already has a clear
picture of what she wants this issue to be:
the rest are going on blind faith.)

By April, a good working table of con-
tents is ready. Margaret agrees to analyze
and write up the survey results. Question-
naires are mailed out. Letters are still ar-
riving in response to the announcement
in the winter issue.

During the spring, Daniel and student
helpers Janice Standley ’78, Rose Bu ’79
and Sally Norris ’80 are kept busy proces-
sing a mounting tide of responses. (More
like a tidal wave; we’ve created a mon-
ster.) Julie Marsteller, college archivist,
is helping with the research. A host of
features are in progress. We attack the
biographical sketches, the list of which
already numbers thirty and is still grow-
ing. Material’s fantastic— exceptional-
outstanding! (Gradually, job and family
commitments are reclaiming our volun-
teers; who will write all the Vitae? Help!)

Dilemma: what to do with the large
amount of material on medical alumnae
who are not MD’s? This remains a thorny
question right to the end . . . when it
becomes obvious that there simply isn’t
going to be enough space. They need
their own special issue.

A working weekend at Nora’s house in
Connecticut, reading through stacks of
material from and about alumnae doc-
tors; we paint Easter eggs; we read some
more. Time out while Daniel (an accom-
plished cellist) plays for us. Nimrod the
cat purrs in front of the fire; the dogs,
dreaming, twitch gently.

The summer is a time of stresses and
strains for everyone. We are buried,
swamped, drowned in material. Metaphor
fails us. Various people go out of town
for vacations, for business trips, for the
birth of a grandchild. Daniel is accepted
as a master’s candidate at the Eastman
School of Music in Rochester for Septem-
ber. Nora announces her forthcoming

retirement as editor. An editorial board
meeting in progress at Deborah’s Green-
wich Village apartment is rudely inter-
rupted by the Blackout of 1977. There’s
no way to travel and almost everyone
stays the night; there aren’t enough beds;
Daniel goodnaturedly sleeps on the floor.

Another working weekend in Connec-
ticut. No end in sight. Write, rewrite, re-
vise; time out for a quick swim. (At dusk,
crickets chirp pre-med, pre-med, and the
frogs croak edit, edit; birds sing medical
specialties in the cool grey dawn.)

Deadline dates and finished articles
begin to arrive (not always at the same
time). Final layouts. Setting type.

Back in New York, Margaret leaves her
job to hunt a better one. Daniel is pack-
ing. Everyone’s exhausted. Deadlines
pass, September arrives; we’re still at it.
Daniel leaves for Rochester. Stay with it,
team; we’re almost there. Just a little
longer, everybody; we’re almost there . . .

Thanks go to all members of the edi-
torial board who helped plan this issue,
beginning in the spring of 1976; to Helen
Pond McIntyre ’48 for her encourage-
ment; to the staff of the alumnae office
for their generous cooperation, as always;
to Dr. Katherine Falk ’66, who checked
the galleys for medical inaccuracies; to
all the authors who contributed articles;
and to Suzanne Wiedel Pace ’66, our
new editor, who came on board and
quickly assumed responsibility for the
next issue so that Nora could concentrate
on finishing this one.

Extra special thanks go to each and
every alumna who took the time and
trouble to return a questionnaire or to
write a letter; and to each of the follow-
ing people, who together made this issue
a reality: Annette Baxter, Rose Bu, Shari
Lewis, Julie Marsteller, Joan McCulloch,
Daniel Neal, Sally Norris, Margaret
O’Connell, Nora and Jim Percival and
family, Esther Rowland, Emma Stecher,
Devora Steinmetz, Janice Standley, and
Margaret Zweig. — D. R.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 47

LETTERS

Letters, which will be excerpted as
space requires, may be sent to “Barnard
Alumnae, ” Barnard College, New York
10027. The deadlines for each issue are
shown in the Class News section.

NEW BOOKS

Barbara Kauder Cohen ’54, Benny, Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co., 1977.

In another of her explorations in the problems of growing up, Ms. Cohen introduces
Benny Rifkind, a 12-year-old who isn’t particularly good at anything but baseball. The
setting is Newark in 1939; Benny must work after school and on Saturdays in his fa-
ther’s store in lieu of spending time on the diamond, and the plot turns on winning his
family’s respect for his love of the sport.

Daisy Fornacca Kouzel ’45, The Cuckoo’s Reward, El Premio del Cuco,
Doubleday, 1977.

Mayan Indian legend has it that the grey cuckoo was once an exotic multicolored
bird whose plumage and singing made her the envy of the local fowl, and that only
during a struggle between the god of rain and harvest (good guy) and the god of fire
(bad guy) did she overcome her vanity and strive to help the flock. This folk tale is
told in English and Spanish by Ms. Kouzel, and Earl Thollander has provided colorful
illustrations.

Edith Harris Moore ’27 and Burton Moore, Ship and Shore Chef, Bemor,
1974.

The Moores have lived for several years on the Yee Yang, a Chinese junk moored
off the coast of Elorida, and the experience of these former Connecticut Yankees
cooking in the stir-fry manner in the junk’s galley has created an interesting array of
dishes.

Marietta Dunston Moskin ’52, Adam and the Wishing Charm, Coward,
McCann and Geoghegan, Inc., 1977.

In sailing days. South Street was the place for a boy like Adam to dream of going to
sea. But Adam’s father said it was hopeless for a boy who was lame to want to be a
sailor. However, Adam’s friend Titus knew how to help— with his African wishing
charm. Illustrations by Joseph Scrofani highlight the excitement.

Suzanne Nalbantian ’71, The Symbol of the Soul from Holderlin to Yeats,
Columbia University Press, 1977.

This study in comparative literatures refers to the poetic texts of four— English,

The Total Experience
of Barnard

To the Editor:

O. K., o. k., you’ve finally got me
aroused enough to write to the editor my-
self. Usually, I just read the letters of
others and add “me too” to their senti-
ments, but this time I feel compelled to
actually add my own two cents’ worth.

In response to both Helena Wellicz
Temmer ’43 and Robin Rudolph Fried-
heim ’56 who questioned the existence of
a women’s school which is separate for
the sake of being separate: I was a mathe-
matics major, and I must acknowledge
the contribution that Columbia Universi-
ty made to my education. In four years, I
took only one semester course in ‘pure’
math at Barnard . . . The courses I needed
for my major and the courses that I
wanted to take for interest were given
only through Columbia College or at Uni-
versity level. But the only interesting
thing about them was the subject . . . The
instructors were certainly no better than
any I had had at Barnard, and the
instructor-student interaction was non-
existent. The facilities were worse, and I
distinctly remember my annoyance at
being proctored and actually under sur-
veillance during Columbia finals, in con-
trast to the atmosphere at Barnard where
I could concentrate on the material, with-
out being conscious of where my eyes
were wandering.

But, even with all the courses I took at
Columbia for my degree, it was Barnard’s
math department that made me what I
am today: a computer scientist. When
Columbia was afraid to spend an extra
dime, and was in fact closing Fine Arts
and other ‘unnecessary’ disciplines, Bar-
nard hired an instructor to provide two
semester courses of computer program-
ming. When the available Columbia pro-
gramming courses (one given through the
Engineering School and one ‘Computers

for Poets’) were teaching students a speci-
fic programming language or two, my
Barnard course taught me the basic prin-
ciples of computer logic so I could learn
to program. (An analogy would be to
teach someone a foreign language by
teaching them syntax only— they could
construct sentences, but they would not
be communicating effectively.) Those
two Barnard courses changed my direc-

tion and shaped my professional life.

Even after saying all this, I haven’t said
enough yet. It was the small classes, it
was the honor system, it was the sense of
feeling welcome and sheltered while I was
going through an ‘identity crisis,’ it was
the sense of being special and yet know-
ing there were other young women like
me, (at my high school, all the ‘brainy’
girls tried to hide it and never got really

need separate models, and single-sex
schools will not be needed— but until that
day arrives, add my name to the “Open
Letter to President Mattfeld.”

Beverly Ruth Johnson ’71
Huntington Beach, CA

French, German and American— to show how the metaphoric representation of the
soul underwent a series of mutations in the course of the nineteenth century. At first
closely related to the Platonic and Christian ideals, the soul image later went through
successive phases from imperial identity to expressions of imperilled existence, to a
sense of mortality and ultimately to a symbol of perishability and final loss. The
dichotomy of body and spirit disappears, and the soul image survives, bereft of theo-
logical significance, as an expression of spiritual shipwreck.

Susan Kelz Sperling ’64, Poplollies and Bellibones: A Celebration of Lost
Words, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1977.

In this humorous and unique study of unusual words, some obsolete, others desig-
nated as rare and dialect in various dictionaries, Ms. Sperling combines delicious lost
words that deserved not to die with modern English in original stories, rounds, dia-
logues and poems. “Smellsmock,” “liripoop,” and “prickmedainty” reside within,
with hundreds more waiting to be rediscovered and enjoyed.

THEATRE

Rae Temkin Edelson ’64, Becoming Eve, April 26-30, Hunter Playwrights
Equity Showcase Production, Hunter College Little Theater.

Ms. Edelson’s play concerns a young girl’s coming of age.

RECITALS

Deborah Burton ’75, Pianist, June 15, College Parlor.

Ms. Burton’s program consisted of works by Scarlatti, Mendelssohn, Chopin,
Brahms and Liszt.

EXHIBITIONS

Lucia Hathaway Carver ’47, Paintings, April, Union Trust Company,
Greenwich, CT.

As an invitational artist of the Greenwich Art Society, Ms. Carver showed both
abstracts and representational works in watercolor, pastel and acrylics.

close to each other) it was having won-
derful models of successful women who
cared about other women ... I could go
on forever. My four years at college were
so much more than classes, or knowledge
gained, or the ‘usual’ activities like sports,
newspapers, and political groups. It is for
the total experience that I remember Bar-
nard, with much gratitude and love, and
money whenever I have some to send. I

am not a psychic, and I couldn’t say what
kind of person I would have become if I
had gone to a co-ed school. But I do
know how much my Barnard experience
meant and means to me, how unsure of
myself I was and how important it was
for me to be in a single-sex community
during those years. Perhaps some day
boy-children and girl-children will grow
up completely equally, and they will not

A Feminist Dream

To the Editor:

As an alumna and a feminist, I am un-
alterably opposed to the proposed Bar-
nard-Columbia merger under which Bar-
nard’s identity, already eroded, would be
subsumed under that of Columbia. The
suggested arrangement reminds me of
Blackstone’s remarks that in marriage
both spouses become as one person and
that person is the man . . .

The underlying— and to date unre-
solved-issue really is, why bother to have
a separate women’s college in this day
and age? What is its raison d’etre in the
second half of the twentieth century?

It seems to me that this question can
be answered in one way only: by trans-
forming Barnard from a women ’s college
to a feminist college. This would mean
that feminism would inform the entire
curriculum, extracurricular activities, and
the college’s relationship with the outside
world. Women’s studies would not be
quarantined into a separate department—
the whole curriculum would be one of
feminist studies. Every course would de-
vote a major pcirt of its lectures, readings
and assigned papers to exploring woman’s
condition. The social science and history
courses would incorporate and focus on
the past and present roles of women; the
arts would develop and discover women’s
expression. Even in the exact sciences,
changes could be made. (For example, to
eliminate sexist language. Why is an ani-
mal always referred to as ‘he’ instead of
‘it’?)

The transformation of Barnard into a
feminist college would make it a national
—if not worldwide— center for women’s
studies and a pioneer in feminist scholar-
ship. It would attract feminist scholars
and teachers from all over the globe.
Women artists, poets, writers, actors,
scientists, political leaders would come to
Barnard to share their experiences and
thoughts with the Barnard community—

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 49

and to refresh themselves in its atmos-
phere. Barnard would become a clearing-
house and center for feminism, a mecca
for the best and brightest women who are
changing the world. And the students
would be the ultimate gainers from this
intellectual excitement.

Barnard as a feminist college would
have a distinct and unique identity that
would distinguish it from any other col-
lege in the world. There could be no ques-
tion of its raison d’etre. It would pioneer
in being a feminist college now as it has
pioneered in being a women’s college
in the past.

Is this but a dream? Is it impossible?

Or can the impossible become possible if
enough of us want it?

Aviva Cantor ’6 1
New York, NY

ROOT FOR
BARNARD

by Marian Linder Rosenwasser,
Director of Athletics

On a recent vacation while sporting
my Barnard Bear T-shirt I made the
acquaintance of Gayle Gutekunst-Roth
’73. In addition to expressing a strong
desire to have a T-shirt of her very own,
Gayle was delighted to learn of the pro-
gress we have made in developing inter-
collegiate athletics at Barnard in a few
short years.

She was excited at the notion of Bar-
nard athletes competing in uniforms
which actually say “Barnard,” and said
she would love to see our teams in action.
I extended an open invitation to Gayle to
attend any and all of our games, and that
same invitation is open to all alumnae.
There are no admission charges to our
events, it would truly please the athletes,
and enable alumnae to feel closer to cur-
rent student life.

On this page are listed the competitive
schedules currently established for Fall
1977. (The events which have already
taken place are included to show the full
range of our activities.) Come out and
root for your school. It is always a good
idea to verify the date by phone, since
there is always a chance of last-minute
changes. Just call 280-2085 for updated
information.

INTERCOLLEGIATE SCHEDULE

VOLLEYBALL

Date

Time

Opponent

Place

Thurs., Sept. 29

5:30 p.m.

Queens

Home

Thurs., Oct. 6

6:00 p.m.

Baruch

Home

Tues., Oct. 1 1

7:00 p.m.

NY Tech

Home

Thurs., Oct. 13

7 :00 p.m.

Pace

Away

Thurs., Oct. 20

6:00 p.m.

Lehman &

Lehman

7:00 p.m.

C. W. Post

Sat., Oct. 29

Ivy League

U of Pennsylvania

Championship

Tues., Nov. 1

6:00 p.m.

Fordham

Away

Thurs., Nov. 3

6:00 p.m.

Hofstra

Home

Fri. & Sat., Nov. 4

& 5

District Tournament

Staten Island

Thurs., Nov. 10

5:30 p.m.

Mercy

Home

Fri. & Sat.,

NYSAIAW

To be announced

Nov. 11 & 12

Championship

Thurs., Nov. 1 7

6:00 p.m.

CCNY

Home

TENNIS

Fri., Sept. 30

3:30 p.m.

Staten Island

Away

Wed., Oct. 5

3:00 p.m.

Fordham 3

Baker Field (tentative)

Fri., Oct. 7

1:00 p.m.

Stonybrook

Baker Field

Wed., Oct. 12

12 noon

NYU

Baker Field

Tues., Oct. 18

4:00 p.m.

Hofstra

Away

Sat. - Mon.

NYSAIAW

SUNY at Binghamton

Oct. 22 - 24

Championship

SWIMMING & DIVING

Wed., Nov. 16

7 :00 p.m.

Adelphi

Away

Wed., Nov. 30

7 :30 p.m.

Lehman & FDU

Home (Columbia)

Fri., Dec. 2

7:30 p.m.

Hunter

Home (Columbia)

Fri., Dec. 9

7 :30 p.m.

To be announced

Home (Columbia)

Sat., Dec. 10

Queens Invitational

Queens College

BASKETBALL

Wed., Nov. 30

6:00 p.m.

York

Home

Fri., Dec. 2

3:00 p.m.

Drew

Home

Mon., Dec. 5

6:00 p.m.

Baruch

Away

Wed., Dec. 7

7:00 p.m.

Pace

Home

FENCING

Thurs., Dec. 1

7:00 p.m.

St.John’s

Home

Sat., Dec. 10

Christmas Meet

NYU

CREW

Sat., Oct. 8

Nat’l Invitational

Holyoke, MA

Regatta

Sun., Oct. 16

Head of the Charles

Boston, MA

Nov. (To be announced)

Head of the Schuylkill

Philadelphia, PA

Schedules for Cross Country and Field Hockey are in formative stages at press time.
Spring 1978 schedules will appear in the next issue of BARNARD ALUMNAE.
T-SHIRTS ARE ALWAYS AVAILABLE from Marian Rosenwasser.

IN MEMO RI AM

Lucy Morgenthau
Heineman '15

The Alumnae Recognition Award
voted to Lucy Heineman at this year’s
Reunion has taken on a special poignancy
by the news of her death on July 25 th.

A devoted alumna and friend to the
College, who served it all her life, she will
be fondly remembered by alumnae of
every generation. Her classmate Helena
Lichtenstein Blue wrote:

“The Class of 1915 is greatly saddened
by the death of its beloved president,
Lucy Morgenthau Heineman. Her unstint-
ing devotion to Barnard and to her class-
mates will never be forgotten. Barnard
played a major role in her life, which gave
her great happiness.

“And her devoted services were not
confined to Barnard. She was a supporter
of the Jewish Home and Hospital for the
Aged of Manhattan and the Bronx, and
was honorary vice-president of the New
York section of the National Council of
Jewish Women.

“She gave so much to so many.”

A memorial tribute to Lucy Heineman
will appear in the winter issue.

Edith Willmann
Emerson '19

On February 8, 1977 Edith Emerson
died in Denver, Colorado. She had moved
there to be near her son and his family
in what was clearly the twilight of her
life. The following “remembrance” was
written for the magazine by her son.

Dr. James G. Emerson, Jr.

Edith Willmann, as she was first
known to her Barnard classmates, was a
person of many abilities— but abilities
both shaped and revealed by her days
at Barnard. Her debt to the school and
esteem for teachers and students she
never forgot. It was expressed in constant
relation to the school through the associ-
ation generally and class leadership
specifically. So much was Barnard a part
of Mother’s life that I myself sometimes
feel like an alumnus-by-inheritance— a
feeling that came long before the “seven
sisters” thought about men on campus.

A kaleidoscope of thoughts begins
with a window seat in a Barnard room
overlooking the 1939 parade route of
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth-
riding in a closed car because of a summer
shower. From the third-story window, all
we saw was a white-gloved hand. I recall
Mother’s joy out of that partial glimpse
of a partial parade. Whether from her col-
lege days or her parents I do not know
(probably from both), she had learned to
see the most in what was available and
not be disturbed by what was not.

That gift was part of the strength that
enabled her to survive the depression
with an ill husband and a small child.
Finally, in the last months of her life,
that gift enabled her to find joy in the
shortest visit of a grandchild.

Another part of the kaleidoscope
might be called “Barnard in San Fran-
cisco.” I will never forget being in the
San Francisco home of another Barnard
alumna— I believe Edith Fredrickson— for
an afternoon with Dean Gildersleeve. She
was in San Francisco as a member of the
United States delegation to the founding
of the United Nations. I recall someone
having asked Dean Gildersleeve how she
knew she had been appointed. As we all
waited for a story of some mysterious
courier in the night, or a call that said,
“This is the President speaking,” Dean

Gildersleeve winked at me and replied,
“Oh, I heard it on the radio while cook-
ing beans.” As a Stanford student at that
time, my image of austere Eastern college
deans was totally shattered!

Mother often spoke of Dean Gilder-
sleeve’s capacity to handle situations.
What happens when armistice is delcared
or V-J day is announced? For some,
uncontrolled bedlam is a necessity. None
think they require it more than college
students. Dean Gildersleeve was equal
both to the occasion and to the student.
When the armistice was announced that
November day in 1918, students poured
out of dorm and classroom. A parade
started. Who was at the head? The Dean!
Dean Gildersleeve led the serpentine
across the campus, onto the streets, and
then back to the classroom. For Mother,
the knowledge that the Dean was in
charge made as much impact as the news
of “cease fire.”

Barnard in San Francisco involved
more than just that wartime meeting
with the Dean. There was the time when
we crossed the bay to witness the launch-
ing of a ship named “Barnard.” We were
close enough to be sprayed by the tradi-
tional champagne bottle! There was the
garden party Mother gave in honor of
Alene MacMahon— the actress. I believe
she was Class of 1920. Here was another
remarkable woman. It was the day of
Charlie Chaplin’s time in court on a
maternity suit. I was amongst those
students who were most disdainful of
the “Hollywood rich.” “Yes,” said Miss
MacMahon, “but do not fail to see the
great talent.” Again, was it Barnard
teaching that allowed her to see what
was available?

In more recent days than those.
Mother and her Barnard peers maintained
a lively interest in Barnard’s growth.
Mother returned to New York from
Stanford in 1946. She followed with
appreciation the activities of each new
Dean. She watched buildings grow.
She was troubled by the turn of student
attitudes in the ’60’s yet pleased by the
excellence of graduates in those same
years. I am grateful to Barnard for the
lasting friendships it gave to my mother,
for the foundation of excellence in
thought and life she found in the school,
and for the legacy of both passed on to
others— especially her son, his wife,
and her grandchildren.

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 51

Obituaries

Extending deepest sympathy to their
families, friends and classmates, the
Associate Alumnae announce with
regret the following deaths:

05 Edith Dietz Janney, April 30, 1975
Blanche Reitlinger Wolff, February

06 Eleanor Holden Stoddard, March 1
10 Hazel Irene Wayt, September 22,

1976

12 Elsa P. Wunderlich, June 23

13 Alberta C. Edell, October 25, 1976
15 Lucy Morgenthau Heineman, July 25
19 Constance Lambert Doepel,

March 20

Esther Brittain Graves, May 8
Lucy Carter Lee, June 22

21 Lillian Horn Weiss, July 30, 1976

22 Helen Warren Brown, May 6
Elisabeth Harlow Marden, February
1976

Dorothy Swaine Thomas, May 1
25 Margaret Irish Lamont, June 10
Margaret Mason Laurie, June 1976
Pearl Petigor, January 1

40 Elizabeth Kinports Kastenbein,
March 21

41 Louise Giventer Cohen, June 27

Class News

NOTE

If no correspondent is listed for your
class, please send your news items directly
to the Alumnae Office.

Dr. Gulielma Fell Alsop
123 Bayberry Lane
Westport, CT 06880

Miss Dorothy Brewster
Red Creek Road
Millersville, PA 17551

Helen Loeb Kaufman n (Mrs. M. J.)
59 West 12th Street
New York, NY 10011

Emma Bugbee
80 Corona Street
Warwick, Rl 02886

Marion Monteser Miller
525 Audubon Avenue
New York, NY 10040

Marie Maschmedt Ruhrmann (Mrs. O.)
■ 52-10 94th Street
Elmhurst, NY 11373

Florrie Hoizwasser
304 West 75th Street
New York, NY 10023

J O Lucile Mordecai Lebair (Mrs. H.)

• * 180 West 58th Street

New York, NY 10019

J O Mary Voyse (Miss)

• 'J 545 Asharoken Avenue

North port, NY 1 1768

May and June seem to be the months of
luncheons, celebrations and awards. Once again
I am happy to report on Doris Fleischman Ber-
nays. On May 10 she and her husband. Dr. Ed-
ward L. Bernays, were honored by the Worces-
ter County Public Relations Ass'n at an "Even-
ing in Honor of Dr. and Mrs. Edward L. Ber-
nays" at Higgins House, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute. After the dinner Dr. Bernays spoke
on "The Case for State Licensing and Registra-
tion of Public Relations Practitioners." Also, in
May, Babson College granted honorary Doctor
of Laws degrees to Dr. Edward L. and Doris F.
Bernays.

At the Barnard Reunion luncheon on May
13 I was joined by our president, Joan Sperling

Lewinson, Edith Halfpenny and Molly Stewart
Colley. Molly was planning a birthday party for
her husband's 90th birthday.

On May 5 your correspondent was one of
three honored guests at a luncheon celebrating
the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the
Long Island Zone, New York State Retired
Teachers Ass'n. She was a founder of the Long
Island Zone.

Agnes MacDonald '23 kindly notified me
that Lillian Waring McElvare is now living at
1630 Niagara Road, Southern Pines, NC 28387.
We send her our sympathy on the death of her
husband.

We are also sorry to report the death of
Emma S. Hubert.

4 A Edith Mulhall Achilles
■ 417 Park A venue

New York, NY 10022

Edith Davis Haldimand reports that she, her
husband, four daughters, eight grandchildren
and six great-grandchildren are all fine.

Marguerite Engler Schwarzman is working
for the elderly in California and receiving
honors and rewards for her efforts.

IN THE NEWS
Louise Lincoln Kerr '14

Louise Lincoln Kerr was recognized
by Arizona State University last spring
for her role in developing the musical
climate of the metropolitan Phoenix
area over the past four decades. She
was presented with an honorary doc-
torate of humane letters, which was
conferred by ASU President John W.
Schwanda.

Mrs. Kerr, long a violist with the
Phoenix Symphony, has been an active
administrator, serving on the Sympho-
ny’s board of directors, joining with
others to found the Arizona Compos-
ers Society and establishing the Phoe-
nix Chamber Music Society. She also
designed and built the Kerr Studio in
Scottsdale, her home, which has been
a center for chamber music perform-
ance and has fostered the growth of
musical involvement in the area. As a
composer, Mrs. Kerr has produced
works for orchestra and varied cham-
ber ensembles, some of which have
been performed by the Phoenix Sym-
phony.

Freda Wobber Marden {Mrs. C. F.)
Highwood-Easton Avenue
Somerset, NJ 08873

Class officers elected at Reunion (left to right)
are; Irma Meyer Serphos, vice-pres., Mary Tal-
mage Hutchinson, 2nd vice-pres., Freda Wobber
Marden, correspondent. Dr. Frances Krasnow,
president, Elizabeth Man Sarcka, ass't corres-
pondent. Fund chairman Margaret Moses Fel-
lows is missing from picture.

A report on Reunion in the alumnae maga-
zine by Elizabeth Man Sarcka described it as
"beautiful." To me, too, it was a memorable
occasion. However, I regret that the meeting
time was too short to permit chatting with all
the friends and acquaintances of those days.

It was a day to cherish. How pleased we were
with the comfortable and pleasant arrange-
ments prepared by the Reunion Committee,
our own Reunion chairman, Irma Meyer Ser-
phos, and Dr. Frances Krasnow.

We were deeply sorry that Babette Deutsch
was unable to be present to speak to us and
accept the honors that Barnard was to confer
on her. However, her son Adam represented her
in accepting the honors and giving a brief talk,
both witty and touching, and reading a few of
her poems. A month after the occasion, Babette
wrote, "It was only a few days ago that I was
able to go to the Library to see the exhibit— and
how resplendently it was organized. It gave me
fresh courage at a time when I was much in
need of it." In another letter, she wrote, "I
want to make unmistakably clear how deeply I
appreciate the generosity the Nineteen Seven-
teeners have shown me. It is, I think, a splendid
class and delightful to be well thought of. I do
regret not having seen my old friends— telling
them how deeply I appreciate their good
words." She also expressed her happiness at re-
ceiving the Distinguished Alumna Award and
the handsome printed tribute. Also the tape of
Adam's talk, which she enjoyed heartily and
was glad that the audience apparently did too.
And "last, the splendid pot of flowers whose
gold matched the flowers."

If there had been time for more of us to give
our two-minute talk, this is what Lucy Karr
Milburn would have said. "Omitting family and
church (Quaker) interests, the accomplishment
I look back on with the greatest satisfaction is
getting black doctors and nurses into the New-
ark City and Presbyterian Hospitals. I was presi-
dent of the Newark Interracial Council at the
time. And my most lasting hobby has been

Yoga. I still try to get in at least 15 minutes of
Yoga daily."

Elinor Sachs Barr, after 23 good years with
the National Council of Jewish Women, contin-
ues there as consultant and active volunteer.
She also works with the Retirees' Education
Dept., American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees, District Council 37,
edits their newsletter, "The Retiree," works
with the Housing Committee, and organized
their Health Committee. Loves it. Her daughter,
Barnard '37, is getting her doctorate at Harvard
and Brandeis; her granddaughter has a doctor-
ate in molecular biology from MIT.

Bea Lowndes Earle, for 9 years in Reston,
VA and deeply involved in the growth of this
"intentional community," is chiefly concerned
with the Family Service Agency of Northern
Virginia. Unable to come, because of poor
health, she sent her enduring love.

Edith Cahen Lowenfels studies portrait
drawing and water color, has spent several years
as reader for a blind man. Enjoys grandchildren.

Gertrude Adelstein completed writing her
family story— before "Roots," is happily busy
with School Volunteers, City Opera Guild, etc.,
was robbed while asleep in Atlanta— not NY!

Marion Stephens Eberly reports a most ful-
filling old age as a matriarch, surrounded by
two generations of children and nephews-and-
nieces, does much bird-watching and bird-band-
ing with the team.

Edith Baumann Benedict (Mrs. H.)

15 Central Park West
New York, NY 10023

Helen Slocum
43 Mechanic Street
Huntington, NY 11743

Members of the class will be saddened to
hear of the recent deaths of three classmates;
Isabel Smith Bemis, who died on November 17,
1976, survived by her nephew, Edwin W. Bemis;
Charlotte Elizabeth Williams, who died on
March 9th, who is survived by her nephew, Bar-
tis F. Vaughan; and Lucy Carter Lee, who died
on June 22nd after a long illness. Lucy is sur-
vived by her sister, Mrs. Dwight Day.

A letter from Marjorie Arnold '21 offers re-
miniscences of anthropologist Erna Gunther:
"... a student of Franz Boas, Erna was our
chaperone-instructor at the American Museum
of Natural History. She married Leslie Spier
and they had two sons. Leslie is dead now. The
last time I heard directly from Erna, she was in
Alaska . . ." After teaching anthropology at the
U of Washington for 30 years, Erna Gunther
became a museum consultant at Sheldon Jack-
son College in Sitka, Alaska. In 1972 she pub-
lished a book on Indian life on the northwest
coast in the 18th century. The alumnae roster
lists her current address as Bainbridge Island,
Washington.

Elaine Kennard Geiger (Mrs. L.)
14 Legion Terrace No. 1
Lansdowne, PA 19050

Seven members of the class attended the Re-
union on May 13th. We were; Edna Colucci,
Elaine Kennard Geiger, Josephine MacDonald
Laprese, Dorothea Lemke, Ruth Brubaker
Lund, Elizabeth Rabe and Margaret Wilkens.
Amid chatter about grandchildren, nieces, neph-
ews, trips and gardens, we made plans for the
class luncheon to be held October 13 at the
Deanery. We hope you can be there and would
appreciate suggestions as to a program if you
want one. Our thanks and appreciation to
Dorothy Robb Sultzer for all she does on
behalf of the Alumnae Fund. 1920's increased
giving is the result.

Helen Jones Griffin (Mrs. R.)

105 Pennsylvania Avenue
Tuckahoe, NY 10707

Our president, Lee Andrews, has no travel
plans this summer (unusual for her!) and will
probably entertain a small group of interested
'21ers at her Bayville, LI home instead. Her
strong interest and real effort has been devoted
—of all things— to gardening! As Lee says, "It's
uncomfortable and often back-breaking work,
but the results justify all that," for she thor-
oughly enjoys her lovely flowers and "inexpen-
sive and delicious fresh vegetables and fruit."
She describes her early struggles with weeds and
her ultimate solution thereof; a biodegradable
black paper which she lays strip-wise in aisles
between plants. Should this not work, Lee says
it means she'll have to go back to "the hoe and
the humming." In conclusion, Lee says, "I am
determined to have a successful garden, no
matter what."

Ruth Clendenin Graves regretted sincerely
she could not join old friends and neighbors in
Bronxville at the gala golden anniversary of
West Center Church there. However, she did
have a real treat when her son and his family
went on a back-packing excursion during Easter
vacation. Ruth did not back-pack, but was very
happy to be left off in Tryon, NC, where she
and Earl enjoyed their years of retirement so
much, to meet her many dear friends there.

Marion Peters Wood of Westport, CT, lec-
tured last February on Connecticut furniture
and artifacts at the Westport Historical Society.
Marion, with a master's degree in fine arts from
Cornell, has served as editor of decorating and
home furnishings for "Woman's Home Compan-
ion," and also wrote daily columns in the wo-
men's sections of the New York Telegram and
the New York Sun. Later she became an an-
tique dealer in Maine, and now she spends
much of her time lecturing.

Clara Weiss, well recovered from a winter-
time illness, took an ambitious tour of Iran,
Rome, Geneva, Paris and London! Meanwhile
she continues her part-time work at the School
for Esoteric Studies. She is a staff member
there and gives talks at monthly meetings.

Marjorie Marks Bitker sends the exciting
news that her "little paperback" novel, pub-

REMEMBER THE
THRIFT SHOP

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 53

lished in 1976 by Popular Library, won second
place in a state-wide contest for full-length fic-
tion. The contest was under the auspices of the
Council for Wisconsin Writers. Also, a short
story, which had appeared in the Wisconsin
Academy Review, won second place in the
short fiction category. There were cash prizes
and "very elegant" certificates to witness these
"marvels." She and husband Bruno continue
their frequent trips for business and pleasure,
especially to Palo Alto, CA, visiting children
and grandchildren there. And Midge still enjoys
her tennis.

Your secretary, Helen Jones Griffin, revelled
in 12 June days with Joyce and her busy family.
Aside from much tennis and visiting many
friends (especially their artist friends in Man-
chester, Bunny and Joe Trepetti) two other
really high spots were the drive up into Ver-
mont, on mountainous roads, through Stowe
and finally into Jeffersonville, where 14-year-
old Andrea was left for her two weeks at tennis
camp. The other high spot was the drive to and
the delightful visit and dinner at New Hamp-
shire U, a most unusual institution in a magni-
ficent setting.

Louise Schlichting
411 Highland Terrace
Orange, NJ 07050

Thank you for your encouraging notes and
words about our successful 55th Reunion. It
was a very happy time. You will be glad to
know that our class contributed over $5000 to
Barnard, a good record for us.

After Reunion I went to England for a glori-
ous two weeks. Believe it or not, we had sun-
shine every day until I left on June 6. Of course
you know the heavens opened next day with a
downpour for the Queen's celebration. I was
particularly glad to visit Doris Craven for a day.
She looks just as we remember her, tall, grace-
ful and gracious. She and her friend Brooke
have a lovely home in Pulborough and a beauti-
ful garden connected with a large studio filled
with oils and watercolors, some of which Doris
contributes to sales for Red Cross and cancer
groups. Some time ago she sent me this little
tidbit— "Barnard has reached the ultimate in
publicity! We've made the crossword puzzle
world! 'What is the relation between fermented
honey and a famous anthropologist? 4 letters.' "

If any of you were near the home of Katha-
rine Mills Steel in Flushing this past spring you
had a treat for the eye. Katharine's husband, in
spite of protesting knees, planted 3000 bulbs
last fall.

Last year Lucy Lewton visited the state of
Washington where part of her family is living.
Icy fog, grey skies and rain made Ventura, CA
seem very desirable. This spring Lucy took care
of her arthritic pains by having total hip re-
placement. Any others in the class who have
had this operation? It usually has good results.
Lucy is again walking comfortably with a cane.

Eva Glassbrook Hanson could not be at Re-
union but she wrote of a happy time she had
flying from Whittier, CA to San Juan and then
cruising the Caribbean and returning by way of
the canal, A year ago she entertained the L.A.

Barnard Club.

Margaret Hannum Lerch takes swimming
exercises at the local Y. They seem to help her
back problems. She sends best wishes from
Easton, PA.

Marion Vincent is back in the convalescent
home at 191st St. and Audubon Ave. During
June she spent time in St. Luke's Hospital with
a broken hip following a fall in her room. She
is recovering slowly.

Elizabeth Craig sends love and best wishes
from her home in Jackson, MS.

Marion Durgin Doran visited Barnard last
winter and saw big changes. She says, "I liked it
better 55 years ago." Naturally— we miss the
tennis courts, the jungle, and the small intimate
college.

Miriam Knox Dent in Waynesburg, PA is in
good health and takes her champion Scotch col-
lie to the park twice a day. Shouldn't we all get
out of doors more and walk? I do my best ev-
ery day and occasionally join the Essex County
Trail Walkers for a 3-mile hike through the
reservation.

Margaret Tally Brown sends her best to all
of you. She writes, "fortunately life is going
along quite well for us."

Eva Daniels Brown was sorry to miss Reun-
ion. "Do give anyone who remembers me my
love and a medal for excellent memory." She
and her husband have both had heart problems
which have kept them confined to their home
in Sarasota, FL. "This has been my first and
only sickness of any significance that I have
ever had and it doesn't agree with my tempera-
ment at all." We send best wishes to you, Eva.

Elizabeth Brooks is our politician and gar-
dener. The former kept her from Reunion.
Commenting on the Ford-Carter contest and
remembering history, Elizabeth writes "even
Jefferson warned against some of the forces
aroused and it is going to be hard for the loyal
Navy man. Carter, to keep them harnessed."

Late last spring we learned of the death of
Mary Rodgers Lindsay in February. The British
listed her in their "Two Thousand Women of
Achievement— 1970" page 702.

Emily Martens Ford (Mrs. C. W.)

Winhall Hollow Road
Bond Vi He, VT 05340

Only seven 1923 classmates came to the Re-
union luncheon and alumnae meeting on May
1 3. They were Alice Boehringer, Winifred Dun-
brack, Emily Martens Ford, Ruth Lustbader
Israel, Effie Morehouse, Leone Newton Willett,
and Elizabeth Wood. At the supper, only Grace
Becker, Ruth Strauss Hanauer and Ruth Lust-
bader Israel were present. We were happy that
Alice was able to come as she has not been able
to go out for some months.

Margaret Bowtell Wetherbee telephoned me
recently from Rutland, VT where she was visit-
ing her daughter. She enjoyed a two-week Car-
ibbean cruise last spring with her Barnard room-
mate Mary Crowley Hernblad '25.

Marion Byrnes Flynn returned to Dorset,
VT in late April after a trip to England and Ire-
land where she visited friends. My husband and
I enjoyed a gourmet luncheon at her home soon

after her return. Marion writes frequently for
local newspapers reporting on interesting things
to do and see around Vermont.

Clare Loftus VerriHi was feted last spring on
her 75th birthday, at a dinner party for 34
guests given by her two daughters. Among
those present were Agnes MacDonald and
Agnes Purdy Fade from 1923.

The sympathy of her classmates goes out to
Leah Murden Bayne who recently lost a sister.
Leah is still at the Somers Manor nursing home.

Thelma Irene Swartz Won writes from Cali-
fornia that the Seven Colleges Conference is
again putting on an Arthur Fiedler Pops concert
and she is one of the Barnard sponsors.

Caroll and I have just returned from a visit
to Alaska which left us practically breathless.
The vastness, the glaciers, the endless snow-clad
mountains make other places we have visited
diminished by comparison.

Garda Brown Bowman suffered a heart
block in May and was recovering well when she
fell and fractured her pelvis in late June. She is
recuperating at home at this writing and we
wish her a speedy recovery. Grace Becker had a
stroke in late May and is making good progress
in hospital. We hope she will soon be able to go
home. Dorothy Scholze Kasius' husband is do-
ing well following a serious operation in May.

It grieves me to report the death on May 6
of Judith Byers McCormick. Agnes MacDonald
attended a memorial service for Judith on May
13 in Saugatuck, CT. A son and three daughters
survive to whom we extend our sympathy. You
will all remember Judy as our very competent
freshman president and those who were at our
50th Reunion will not forget her joyous return
for that occasion.

Ethel Quint Collins (Mrs. J.)

West Street
Harrison, NY 10528

Adele Bazinet McCormick reports an amus-
ing incident of the "small world" type. In the
waiting room of her opthalmologist she met a
woman who mentioned that she was Dean Gil-
dersleeve's niece, and also the mother-in-law of
Adele's doctor. It would seem that Adele's pas-
sion for Barnard has unconsciously directed her
professional choices. Adele has recently re-
turned from a trip on the Vistafjord to St.
Thomas, V.l. She had a pleasant luncheon visit
there with Marie Louise Cerlian who has now
retired and lives there all year round.

Christine Einert, MD was in New York for
two weeks taking a refresher course at a medi-
cal institute. She visited with a few classmates,
among them Georgia Giddings, Eleanor Pepper
and Grace Kahrs.

A very worthwhile program at the May 13th
Reunion was attended by a few of our class-
mates, among them Eleanor Kortheuer Stapel-
feldt, Genevieve Colihan Perkins, and Grace
Kahrs.

Eleanor Kortheuer Stapelfeldt has been au-
diting language courses in French and German,
a privilege not taken advantage of often
enough. The courses are excellent and not over-
crowded. Cicely Applebaum Ryshpan audits
sociology and government courses.

Elizabeth M. Abbott
466 Larch A venue
Bogota, NJ 07603

Fifteen members of the class were at 1925's
spring party at the Barnard Club April 20 and
as always enjoyed meeting old friends and ex-
changing news. Greetings were read from mem-
bers who were unable to be there. Present were:
Betty Abbott, Jessie Jervis Alozery, Billy Travis
Crawford, Helen Kammerer Cunningham, Anne
Leerburger Gintell, Julia Goeltz, Gertrude Gott-
schall, Marion Kahn Kahn, Betty Webster Lund,
Frances Nederburg, Edna Peterson, Camille
Da vied Rose, Peg Melosh Rusch, Muriel Jones
Taggart and Marion Mettler Warner.

The third edition of Louise Rosenblatt Rat-
ner's book "Literature as Exploration" has re-
cently been published in paperback. The second
edition was published here in 1968 and in Lon-
don in 1970. After teaching at the Rutgers
Graduate School of Education for the past
three years she is staying at home, finishing a
new book on critical theory. An article on
"Whitman and the 'New Ethnicity' " will ap-
pear in The Yale Review. Her husband Sidney
Ratner continues to teach at Rutgers and her
son Jonathan is in the economics department at
Wellesley.

Alice Mendham Powell retired five years ago
after 23 years of being a college professor but
she is still working part time as child develop-
ment specialist at the Virginia School for Blind
and Deaf Children. Her field is early childhood
education. She is also much involved in commu-
nity work— day care boards and citizens adviso-
ry committees, plus ardent legislative work
when the Virginia Assembly is in session. In the
summer her daughters and six grandchildren
join her at a cottage in Maine.

Mary Benjamin Henderson was honored this
year by being one of the first eight women
elected to the Grolier Club, which had previous-
ly been limited to men collectors of rare books
and manuscripts. Listed since 1946 in "Who's
Who in America," she is now listed in 'The
Who's Who of the World."

Helen Yard Dixon is busy working for and
supporting various groups and organizations.

Barbara Herridge Collins and her husband
enjoyed a tour of New Orleans and the Missis-
sippi River this spring on the new sternwheeler
"Mississippi Queen." She highly recommends
it for relaxation and good food.

Aldene Barrington returned in March from
four months of travel in India, Pakistan, Af-
ghanistan, Nepal and Thailand.

Meta Hailparn Morrison has moved from
Boston to Cambridge to be with her son and his
wife.

Mildred Williamson Johnston has moved
from Boston to her old home city, Washington,
DC.

It is with sorrow that we have to report the
deaths of Mary Elizabeth Aldrich March third
and of Margaret Irish Lamont June tenth. We
extend our sincere sympathy to their families.

Eleanor Anted Virgil (Mrs. J.)
190 Mineola Blvd. Apt. 5L
Mineola. NY 11501

Helena Jelliffe Goldschmidt attended the
50th anniversary celebration of the American
Women's Club of Amsterdam June 2 at the Am-
stel Hotel there. Helena was one of the five
American women married to Hollanders who
organized the club in 1927. She is one of only
two survivors of the original founder members.
The purpose was to keep abreast of the news
from America and to help American women
married to foreign nationals become aquainted
with customs in the Netherlands. The first
meetings were held every two weeks at mem-
bers' homes, each member giving a ten-minute
report on current events in America, including
literature, music, art, theatre, or any field of
interest to her. In those days of sea mail it took
a week to ten days for letters, magazines and
papers. That the club filled a real need is shown
by the fact that there are now 250 members in
Amsterdam and The Hague club has 600. When
the membership reached 20, the meetings were
transferred to the Amstel Hotel and there was a
50-minute lecture. The members organized an
American Library and invited their Dutch
friends to join it. The Library was open one day
a week; the subscription was $1.50 a year.

In 1931 Mrs. Curtis Browne of the Ameri-
can Women's Club of London organized the
Federation of American Women's Clubs Over-
seas. Helena's Amsterdam group wrote the first
constitution for the new federation. In 1939
one of the group was president and now Mrs.
Shirley van Ooijen of the same group has been
elected president. Judging from the foregoing,
Helena should be proud of her "baby."

On June 6 Helena met her husband and
their two granddaughters, Louise, 16, and He-
lena, 13, in Paris. They had a wonderful three-
week tour visiting friends and relatives in Paris,
Geneva, Holland and London, returning to New
York June 27.

Herbert and Sylvia Weyl Stark gave a recep-
tion at the St. Regis in the spring to celebrate
their 50th wedding anniversary.

Nathan and Nina Howell Starr attended his
60th reunion at Harvard in May.

Helen Moran O'Regan is taking a vacation
from her labors as class fund chairman and
planning to spend most of the summer in
Puerto Rico, Florida and Cape Cod.

Eva O'Brien Sureau
40 Mangrove Road
Yonkers, NY 10701

What a thrill to discover we didn't 'totter' to
our 50th Reunion! Interests and activities
ranged from many volunteer commitments in
communities and churches through many sports
such as swimming, sailing, golf, bowling, etc.
Below is a small sampling of '27's doings:

Helen Deutsch: "Working on three books,
two TV shows simultaneously."

Jean Paterson Schere: edits and publishes
'Reprints from the Soviet Press'; author of
novel 'White Eagle, Dark Skies'; writing an
historical novel.

Frances Gedroice Havinga: "Main involve-
ment is Echo Camp for Girls, going into 32nd
year."

Edith Harris Moore: with husband Bert lives

on Chinese junk in Florida; still involved in
community theater activities.

Leona Hurwitz Zacharias: director of re-
search at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Katherine Kride! Neuberger: chairman of
NJ Board of Higher Education.

Harriet Reilly Corrigan: still teaching, and
recently received award as "outstanding leader
in elementary and secondary education."

Mary Vincent Bernson: still in active prac-
tice of the law.

Only lack of space stops the list of interest-
ing jobs that occupy the members of this class.
Obviously, Barnard prepares its girls well for
becoming intelligent, socially-conscious citizens
of the world.

Janet D. Schubert
330 Haven Avenue
New York, NY 10033

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Anny Birnbaum Brieger
120 East 81st Street
New York, NY 10028

(The reports for this issue were prepared by
Eleanor Rosenberg.)

Anny Birnbaum Brieger and her husband
Clarence had just returned from a grand Around
Africa cruise when Anny received our invitation
to serve as '29's new Corresponding Secretary.
Our heartfelt thanks go to Anny for her gra-
cious acceptance. To Dorothy Neuer Hess, who
has for 15 long years edited our news with un-
failing skill, tact, and elegance, the Class of '29
now expresses its warmest gratitude. And to
Dot and Nat Hess we send our best wishes for
their retirement plans!

Five '29ers attended the College Reunion
last May. Also present was Ellen Doherty of the
Class of '79, third recipient of the Marian
Churchill White Award, a girl who seems likely
to do us proud.

This year's dinner reunion, to be held at the
College on October 27th, will be a very special
occasion, for we expect President Mattfeld to
be with us as our guest. Please DO hold the date!

Continuing with our digests of news re-
ceived last spring, we can report that Elizabeth
Cohoe Cooke is now living in Hancock, NH.
She and her husband chose that lovely old vil-
lage for their place of retirement because her
husband's family had built a summer house
there in 1912— a house still being used by the
Cookes' children and grandchildren. Despite her

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 55

IN THE NEWS

Elizabeth Hughes
Gossett ’29

In recognition of her “outstanding
record of spirited public service and
. . . steadfast devotion to excellence,”
New York Law School conferred the
degree of Doctor of Laws “honoris
causa” on Elizabeth Hughes Gossett at
commencement ceremonies last June.
Others who received honorary degrees
were Howard T. Markey, Albert M.
Sacks, and Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan.

Mrs. Gossett, a Trustee of Barnard
from 1953 to 1974, was cited for her
role as a “dynamic community leader
and devoted servant and protector of
the public good.” President of the
United States Supreme Court Histor-
ical Society, Mrs. Gossett is also in-
volved in numerous educational, cul-
tural and social organizations.

family's numerous connections with other col-
leges and universities, Elizabeth continues to
value Barnard's special role in education.

Ruth Cowdrick retired some time ago from
college teaching; now she is active in a number
of local organizations including the Colorado
Springs Woman's Club. Ruth and her little grey
poodle. Dusky, spend their summers at her
mountain cottage west of Denver.

For five winter months, Barbara Mavropou-
los Floras enjoyed a life of "dolce far niente"
in Florida. Barbara claims that she spent much
of that time reading "The New York Times"
and planning for a livelier intellectual experience
on her return to the metropolitan area.

Gertrude Tonkonogy Friedberg apparently
shares with Barbara an incurable addiction to
the Big Apple. She tells of hurting her foot in
the subway: "A subway attendant put down his
dustpan, helped me to limp upstairs, and called
a taxi for me. Very grateful, I offered him some
money. Fie refused, saying, 'The city pays me,
lady.' " And Tonky adds, "New York!"

Now Associate Professor Emeritus in the
Dept, of Microbiology and Immunology at Al-
bert Einstein College of Medicine, Dorothy
Schaefer Genghof is still actively engaged in
enzymological research. When Dorothy wrote,
the Genghofs were planning a trip to the Orient.

Amy Jacob Goell, our Fund Chairman, took
a nature tour of Iceland in the summer of 1976,
on her way to Paris to see her new twin grand-
sons. The twins charmed her so much that she
made a return visit at Christmas. Amy is work-
ing part time at Mental Health of Westchester's
halfway house.

"In the News" again we find Elizabeth
Hughes Gossett, awarded an Honorary Doctor

of Laws degree by the New York Law School
on June 12th. She was in good company, shar-
ing the honors of the occasion with Senator
Moynihan and the Dean of the Harvard Law
School. Congratulations, Elizabeth, from your
very proud classmates!

Josephine Giardina Gulotta describes her
activities as interwoven with the vocations of
her family: her husband is the Presiding Justice
of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court,
2nd Judicial District; both of her sons practise
law and one of them is a NY State assembly-
man; and her daughter, a speech therapist, is
also studying law.

Helen Chamberlain Josefsberg
45 Sussex Road
Tenafly, NJ 07670

Grace Reining Updegrove (Mrs. H.j
1076 Sussex Road
Teaneck, NJ 07666

Evelyn Anderson Griffith (Mrs. E. B.)

O I Lake Clarke Gardens

2687 North Garden Drive, Apt 311
Lake Worth, FL 33460

Cornelia Merchant Hagenau and her hus-
band have participated in two more missions
study seminars. A year ago they had a busy
schedule in Japan where special treats included
being guests at a wedding and reception, attend-
ing a sukiyaki picnic at a camp, and having four
overnight stays in private homes. Then, last
winter they visited Kingston, Jamaica, Trinidad,
St. Croix, and Guyana.

Ms. Alice Tepper Marlin, younger daughter
of Grace Comins Tepper, recently returned
from a visit to Saudi Arabia. As director of the
Council on Economic Priorities, she was a mem-
ber of a commission invited by the royal family
to advise them about environmental conditions.

Margaret Johnston Ewell participates in
community activities involving library and en-
vironmental concern groups. She does part-time
secretarial work and has served as presiding offi-
cer of the Women of the Episcopal Church.
Margaret was the first woman elected from the
diocese to the General Convention of the
Episcopal Church.

Catherine Hartman Clutz last year attended
the inauguration of the new president at Wilson
College in Chambersburg, PA. She wrote that
she was happy to wear a cap and gown as a
representative from Barnard.

Carolyn Agger Fortas is an attorney at law.
Her interests and activities include gardening,
skiing, historic preservation, women's rights,
and population control.

Natalie E. McDonald is active professionally
as a pediatric dentist. She is coordinator of the
Dental Residency Educational Program for
Englewood Hospital in NJ.

Frances Markey Dwyer, psychologist, has
not retired. She listed the Docent Everson Mu-
seum as one of her major interests. Frances has
published short papers with Dr. Johanna Dwy-
er, her daughter, and Jean Meyer in the 1970
"Postgraduate Medicine."

When CecHe Ludlam Ambler last wrote, she
was leaving for a convention around African
violets in Atlanta. Cecile and her husband enjoy
travel, clubwork, and competition in specimen
plants and flower arrangement.

Erna Jonas Fife has been taking art courses
at Hunter College in advanced drawing and
watercolor. She keeps busy in retirement with
reading, knitting, running a house, and reading
Italian.

Mary E. Knapp wrote that she enjoys retire-
ment, but misses her students. Mary has been
doing research in 18th-century newspapers at
the Beinecke Library at Yale.

To many of our classmates the death of
Robert L. Taylor, husband of our president.
Else Zorn Taylor, brought a deep personal loss.

I offer our love and sympathy to Else. Also,
news came of the death of Ruth Ruggles Polhe-
mus. Our class sends sincere sympathy to
Ruth's son and daughter.

Janet McPherson Halsey (Mrs. C.)

400 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of our Presi-
dent Lorraine Popper Price and Fund Chairman
Caroline Atz Hastorf, our class figure from the
Barnard Fund Office showed a 66% participa-
tion rate in contributions as of May '77 with a
grand total of $17,500 over the last five years!
Our telethon last February was instrumental in
securing a wonderful response from our girls
and gave us ideas and reactions from those of
you living far away for which we are grateful.

Marjorie Mueller Freer regretted missing our
45th Reunion but was working that day as co-
ordinator for Dr. Ira Progoff's first Intensive
Journal Workshop in Connecticut, held at Hart-
ford College for Women. She still teaches at
William Hall High in West Hartford and is the
first secondary teacher in the US to be certified
to use the Intensive Journal method with high
school students. She has worked with Dr. Pro-
goff since 1974— last summer at Princeton.

Her second career is play writing— including a
full-length play, "Widow's Walk, a Postscript to
Penelope," a drama of Quaker whaling days,
"The Other Voice," a one-act play about Joan
of Arc, "The Young Oedipus," a companion
piece to her "Jocasta, a Prologue to Oedipus"
and her trilogy "From the Life and Times of a
World Famed Beauty" about Helen of Troy,
which will have its tryout this fall! Marjorie has
three grandsons and a granddaughter courtesy
of daughter Penny, the artist, and her husband.
Daughter Bonnie, still married to her camera,
works on a free-lance basis for the NY Times,
IBM and Western Electric. At 94, Marjorie's
mother still keeps well and active!

Last spring Hortense Calisher Harnack was
elected to the American Academy and Institute
of Arts and Letters. Besides her novellas, essays
and reviews published in the NY Times, maga-
zines and literary periodicals, her more recent
books are "Herself," "Standard Dreaming,"
"Queenie" and "Eagle Eye." Earlier novels
were "False Entry," "The New Yorkers," "Tex-
tures of Life" and "Journal from Ellipsia." In

1976 her thirteenth book came out, "The Col-
lected Stories of H.C."

Since 1957 when she taught a short story
course at Barnard, she has taught at Stanford,

U of Pennsylvania, Brandeis, Sarah Lawrence,
State U of NY, etc. as visiting professor of liter-
ature and as adjunct professor at the School of
the Arts, Columbia. Last year she was Regents
Professor at the U of California. Her son Peter
Heffelfinger graduated from Carlton and has an
MA from Brandeis where he won the poetry
prize. He has taught at Bennington, Manhattan
Community College, Westchester Community
College and the University Without Walls. Her
husband, novelist Curtis Harnack, is executive
director of Yaddo, the foundation for the arts
which has for the past 50 years given work-time
grants to many of America's most distinguished-
to-be artists, writers and composers. Hortense
and her husband often speak at various univer-
sities when they travel. Besides books, other
interests are theatre, music and cross-country
skiing! We salute these two classmates.

Eleanor CrapuUo
201 East 19th Street
New York, NY 10003

Josephine Skinner
41 North EuUerton Avenue
Montclair, NJ 07042

Helen Phelps Bailey was honored at the Bar-
nard Annual Spring Party, held on May 9, upon
her retirement as Professor of French.

Catching up on Evelyn Brill Stark brought
forth a most interesting thumbnail sketch
which we would like to share with you. Writes
Evelyn: "I married Morton Stark the year of
graduation. Morton has had a career in the re-
tail field, which has spanned 40 years. He has
recently retired from the presidency of a lead-
ing resident buying office and is now active on
a voluntary basis in the New York City hospi-
tals. We divide our time between our home on
Candlewood Lake, CT and New York.

"Our son, Henry, graduated from Cornell U
and had a merchandising career with R.H.Macy
and Arkwright Buying Office, where he was
vice president of men's wear. He is now vice
president of sales for Puritan Sportswear, with
headquarters in Los Angeles. We have two
granddaughters, Susan, 13, and Beth, 8.

"As for me, most of my efforts have been in
the field of music therapy. I became founder-
president of the Nora Hellen Music Friends, an
organization sending professional musicians to
perform in hospitals. With my violin, I have
been active for many years with the National
Foundation of Music Therapy, the American
Red Cross Hospital Music Unit, and the Hospi-
tal Music Service of the Protestant Council of
Churches. I have also served on the Board of
Directors of the Music Therapy Center. Several
of my articles have been published in 'Music
Journal,' and I produced a record called 'All
About the Violin,' a copy of which is in the
Library of Congress."

We are always happy to hear from the trav-
elers among us. Grace Hjima went on a three-
week trip to Russia and Siberia last spring and

unhesitatingly singled out Samarkand and Bok-
hara as its highlights.

Janet Silverman Cohen teaches art in the
studio she has shared with artist Aaron Berk-
man for the past 10 years. It is located on up-
per Madison Avenue in NYC, not far from
where she makes her home. Her paintings have
been exhibited at her studio as well as in vari-
ous group shows. Last May one of her works
was included in the art show at the Nat'l Acade-
my of the Nat'l Ass'n of Women Artists.

Janet spent a really glorious Fourth of July
weekend at the home of Dorothy Pearlstein
Zuckerman in Ancram, NY. She was delighted
to get together there with Martha Loewenstein,
Esther Tolk Metzger, Doris Hyman Miller and
Judith Kaplan Seidman. We offer our unstudied
opinion that conversation flowed without a
snag and that goodbyes came hard when this
1933 mini-reunion ended.

And, in tune with reunions, our 45th— an-
other milestone— will be held at Barnard on
May 12, 1978. Mark this date, please, on your
calendar and circle it in red. And do plan to
come.

Alice Kendikian Carskadon (Mrs. J. H.)
260 West Broad Street
Bergen field, NJ 07621

Margaret Gristede MacBain heads the Hospi-
tality Committee for United Nations Delegates.
The committee was formed at the request of
the Secretary-General for the purpose of wel-
coming and assisting the delegates and their
families. The home visitor assigned to each fam-
ily may help with shopping, arrange for a lan-
guage course, or find medical assistance for any-
thing from having babies to heart surgery.
There are social gatherings and swimming pool
parties with American families as well as visits
to cultural institutions in New York.

Margaret's husband, although retired, has
many interests, and is currently involved in the
affairs of the Museum of Modern Art. He and
Margaret enjoy travel and their two grand-
children.

The class regrets that only now news has
been received of the death of Rose Fleischer
Lawn in October 1974. Our sympathy goes to
her family.

Ruth Mary Mitchell Proctor (Mrs. R.)
189 Somerstown Road
Ossining, NY 10562

The Board of Trustees of Educational Test-
ing Service (ETS) have named Marion Greene-
baum Epstein vice-president for College Board
Programs. A resident of Princeton, she was
fonnerly administrative director of professional
services for the College Board Programs Divi-
sion at ETS, and will supervise the various
College Board programs administered by ETS,
including the Admissions Testing Program
(ATP), the Advanced Placement Program (APP),
the College Scholarship Service (CSS), and the
College Level Examination Program (CLEP) in
her new position.

Marion Epstein received her MA and PhD at
Bryn Mawr. She has been with ETS since the
organization was established in 1948. Beginning
as an examiner in mathematics, she has also
served as associate director of the former Test
Development Division at ETS and director of
development and analysis in the College Board
Programs Division. (The above was received
from ETS, Princeton, NJ.)

Dr. Vivian Tenney wrote a most interesting
account of her trip to Poland during the sum-
mer of 1976. Unfortunately, due to space limi-
tations, only a summary and a few quotations
can be printed.

Vivian and a Polish friend, Marty, left for
Poland last summer, after making arrangements
through the government travel office, Orbis.
They arrived in Warsaw after a direct flight
from New York, "laden down with three extra
suitcases, two extra-jammed tote bags and two
fur coats which Marty was giving to her rela-
tives." While in Warsaw, they visited an old
square, which had been reconstructed. "It is
charming, with small, colorful shops, with a
large square in the center where tables and um-
brellas are located. People sit and drink or have
large, gooey sundaes as music plays."

The next day they went on to Krakow
where they were met by Marty's elderly cousins
who arrived with a bunch of flowers. "This is a
lovely custom in Poland. A bunch of flowers is
necessary for all arrivals and departures, despite
the fact that it is taken from the little bit of
food money available." Vivian and Marty
stayed at an American hotel where they had
beautiful rooms with balconies.

"Visiting Marty's cousins was very sad. They
are living on a pittance, and five people live in a
decrepit apartment which has not been painted
for many, many years. They are so discouraged
and hopeless that were it not for the bonanza
which Marty had brought them, and their hap-
piness in seeing Marty again, it would have been
a tearful occasion."

Krakow is a very old city. "The old square
... is charming, but depressing. We visited Wa-
wel Castle and Cathedral, an old, majestic red
stone edifice high on a hill in the center of
Krakow where Polish kings resided."

They went back to Warsaw, and from there
to a spa in Ciechocinek, where they spent three
weeks being given treatments— a "cure"— and on
weekends took trips to Gdansk, Sopot and
Gdynia. In Warsaw, to which they returned af-
ter their "cure," in addition to sightseeing and
spending time with Marty's cousins, they "had
dinner with a friend of Marty's from New Jer-
sey. She is Polish but had lived in America for
many years. She visited Poland and fell in love
with a doctor in Warsaw. She married him. He
has now retired on a minuscule pension because
the government looks down on professional
people and gives them lower pensions than the
working classes." There are vivid descriptions,
too, of transportation problems, which were
difficult to cope with even though Marty spoke
Polish.

Vivian concludes her account with, "We
boarded the plane, and I was happy to be leav-
ing Poland because of the sadness and hopeless-
ness of the people who are beautiful, good
(and) courageous."

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 57

IN THE NEWS

Elspeth Davies Rostow ’38

Elspeth Rostow is now dean of the
Lyndon Baines Johnson School of
Public Affairs at the University of Tex-
as. She was appointed last spring after
Dr. Alan Campbell resigned to become
chairman of the U.S. Civil Service
Commission. Since the school opened
in 1970 it has had three deans and
four acting deans. Ms. Rostow was
dean of the university’s division of
general and comparative studies at the
time of her appointment.

Vivian H. Neale
5 Tudor City Place
New York, NY 10017

Helen Hartmann Winn (Mrs. B.l
248 Country Club Drive
Oradell, NJ 07649

As our 40th Reunion fades into memory,
the Class of '37 marches forward "under new
management," and you will note that this col-
umn is now in the hands of a new correspon-
dent who renews the plea, almost uninterrupted,
for a word from you. While it was wonderful to
see so many old friends, some of whom had
journeyed from as far away as California, there
were many others who could not attend Reun-
ion, and we are all interested to hear about
them as well. Please do write to me and let me
know what you are doing, where you are, how
you plan to cope with retirement— yes, that
looms for many of us— and anything else of
interest to your long-lost classmates.

Page Johnston Karting missed Reunion be-
cause she found herself unexpectedly in Eng-
land for the month of May. She writes, "Around
that trip, before and after, I must pack up my
26 years of living in this house and move to a
smaller one, so the next three months loom as
hyperactive. Drink a good one for me and I'll
try to make the 45th." Similarly, HUdegarde
Becher seized an unexpected opportunity to
travel to Greece and missed the annual gather-
ing for the first time in 40 years!

Dorothy Walker writes from Oregon that
she plans to move to Arizona in November to

REMEMBER THE
THRIFT SHOP

join a Quaker community 100 miles from Tuc-
son. She is boning up on Joseph Wood Krutch's
works to gain information about the region.

Dorothy Watts Hartman, who came east for
Reunion, is the founder of an organization
called Arc Angels, which comprises 25 members
who use their sewing and craft talents to create
products for a boutique. Profits from sales are
used to assist a variety of charitable activities,
including the Red Cross Disaster Fund, Kidney
Foundation, Crippled Children, and senior citi-
zens groups. Dottie also helped found the Hap-
py Dragon Thrift Shop for Ming Quong, pro-
ceeds from which go to support the Ming Quong
Children's Center which treats children with
personality and behavior problems. She also
was president of the Guild which operates Vil-
lage House, a gourmet restaurant employing
300 volunteers dedicated to helping the Ming
Quong Center. Dottie has been nominated Wo-
man of San Jose for her extensive charitable
activities. She and her husband Lloyd have
lived for 21 years in nearby Los Gatos where
they maintain a 2% acre ranch. They have four
children.

Ruth Walter has retired from her long-time
Washington job, and this is also her final year as
Director-at-Large and head of the Awards Com-
mittee for the Associate Alumnae of Barnard
College. She attended Reunion not only to see
her classmates, but also to make her final pre-
sentation of the Alumnae Recognition Awards.
What now, Ruth?

Martha Shoemaker Terry writes, "I am hold-
ing the tribal fort on the banks of the Susque-
hanna and pursuing the pleasures of the coun-
try. I have a new grandson, Jamie Smith, born
to my daughter Judith Terry Smith '62. He's a
winner!"

The Class extends heartfelt sympathy to
Naomi Gurdin Leff who recently lost her hus-
band. She was called away from Reunion by
the tragic news that he had suffered an accident;
he subsequently died of his injuries. Naomi
plans to continue her nursery school this sum-
mer with the aid of her son. You may drop her
a line at P.Q.Box 1 16, Woodridge, NY 12789.

Reunion was further marred by the news
that Grace Aaronson Goldin could not attend
because of the sudden and tragic death of her
daughter. We offer condolences to the Goldin
family in their great loss.

Elizabeth Armstrong Dunn (Mrs. H.)

72 Broad Street
Guilford, CT 06437

It was always taken for granted by class-
mates that Betty Pratt Rice would have a suc-
cessful career. While in Barnard she worked as
college correspondent to the New York Times.
A good reporter— efficient and businesslike— I
recall when several of us stayed at her family's
cottage on Fire Island in the late spring, she had
fun witty interviews with several show biz peo-
ple who took an early breather there. Among
them were Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor and Ed
Wynn. However she always maintained she pre-
ferred a happy marriage and family.

Well, it's turned out she was to have both.
Since 1968 she has had her own public relations

firm, Betty Rice Associates, in Westbury, LI.
She specializes in non-profit institutions with
emphasis on public libraries. Her book, "Public
Relations for Public Libraries," was published
in 1972. Also an adjunct professor in the gradu-
ate library school at C. W. Post College, Long
Island U, she teaches a full-credit course in
library public relations.

Betty's husband, Gordon, recently had a
third one-man photography exhibit. His subject
matter features flowers and natural objects un-
der intense magnification. Although he retired
in 1976 after 28 years of teaching art in the
Great Neck school system, he is now professor
of art history and art appreciation at Nassau
Community College. Their three children are
not exactly sitting around. Up and coming and
on the up-beat is Van Allen who has his own
theatrical lighting and scenic design company.
His latest project. Studio 54 in New York, a
converted TV setup, is now a major disco-
theque. Jo-El is head of promotion for a firm
that designs and markets needlepoint kits.
Martha is a nursery teacher.

Noted baritone Clifford Jackson, husband
of Patricia Scharf Jackson, has a new release
from Nonesuch Records called "An Evening
with Henry Russell." Russell, an Englishman
who spent six years in the US, wrote descriptive
songs displaying an enormous range of subjects
from the hearty patriotism of "Cheer, Boys,
Cheer! "to the nostalgic "Woodman, Spare That
Tree!", "My Heart's in the Highlands" and the
poignant 'The Qld Arm Chair." Many of the
ballads on the record, derived from Russell's
colorful autobiography, are introduced by Mr.
Jackson to show the unique personality of this
overlooked musical figure. Mr. Jackson has pre-
viously recorded an album of songs of the Civil
War era.

Claire Murray in the late spring, accompa-
nied by an old Readers Digest buddy, took the
Benelux tour (Belgium, Luxembourg and Hol-
land) for two weeks. Visiting friends in these
picture-book countries was a thrill but what
really was a revelation to her was the stopover
in Iceland. Qnly five hours from New York, the
country not only provided excellent hotel com-
fort but bus tours to lava beds and geysers, and
brought out the fact that the active geysers
heated by hot springs warm the houses in win-
ter and show a way to beat the energy crunch.
Claire expects to visit well-known painter Mar-
jorie Ashworth Yahraes for a week in August in
Bermuda.

Ninetta diBenedetto Hession (Dr.)

10 Yates Avenue
Ossining, NY 10562

Through the mails came a clipping showing
Barbara Watson hugging Elizabeth Taylor while
Christopher Hunt, Wolf Trap's artistic director,
looks on. Barbara, administrator designate for
the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs of
the State Department, is also Wolf Trap Foun-
dation Board Chairman. They were promoting a
gala benefit for Wolf Trap.

Sad is the news Helen Schelberg sends us;
Elizabeth Kinports Kastenbein passed away on

March 21 after an eight-year bout with cancer-
five operations, radiation and chemotherapy.
Libby taught brain-damaged and blind children
in the Parsippany schools in New Jersey, and
was active in animal welfare work. She was
married in 1958 and widowed a year later. Our
condolences to Libby's family and to Helen
who has been living in the Kastenbein home.

Lois Saphir Lee (Mrs. A.)

204 Furnace Dock Road
Peek skill, NY 10566

Muriel Byer Petruzzelli has moved to 5002
West 112 St., Leawood, KS 6621 1 . After years
of volunteer work Muriel is looking for a fulfill-
ing and remunerative job. Her "progeny are
scattered." Philip, MBA, supervisor of AT&T
Long Lines crew in White Plains; Vicki, ME and
MBA, educational technologist with Digital
Equipment Corp., Springfield, MA; Jerry, Yale
'74 and U of Chicago Law School '77, striking
out for San Francisco and a large law firm
there; Paul, acquiring a degree from Emporia
State U, Kansas.

Agnes Cassidy Serbaroli reports that last
September she was appointed to the NYC
Murry Bergstraum High School for Business Ca-
reers located in downtown Manhattan. This
unique high school specializes in banking, com-
puter science, international trade, law and ac-
countancy. January 'll saw the publication of
her article, "What Do You Worry About Most?"
in Co-Ed Magazine, an associate of Scholastic
Magazines. Family news: older son Francis
graduated from Fordham Law School in May,
and son Joseph, inducted into Phi Alpha Theta
Honor Society and graduated cum laude with
high departmental honors in history from Hun-
ter College in June. Agnes, hope you enjoyed
your trip to Ireland with your husband during
July and August.

Other authors this month are Florence Du-
broff Shelley and Jane Mantell Often who have
co-authored "When Your Parents Grow Old,"

NOTE

Deadlines
for Class News

Class correspondents should plan
their newsgathering so that copy can
be mailed in time to reach the
Alumnae Office NOT LATER THAN
the following dates:

SUMMER ISSUE - April 5th
FALL ISSUE - July 5th
WINTER ISSUE - October 5th
SPRING ISSUE — January 5th

News received after these dates will be
held over till the next issue.

published by Funk and Wagnalls. They decided
to collaborate on this about two years ago, and
the book is already in its 3rd printing. Perhaps
you've seen Jane and Florence interviewed on
TV shows or heard them on radio. They address
the mature son or daughter of parents on the
"threshold of a role reversal"— when parents
become the cared-for, grown children the re-
sponsible and caring. Jane and Florence provide
sound, supportive, step-by-step information and
guidance covering every phase and aspect of
helping aging parents; where and how to find
help in the community; money wisdom (insur-
ance, benefits, taxes, etc.); adjusting to physical
and behavioral changes; lifting morale (hobbies,
new careers, continuing education, travel);
planning retirement; facing the inevitable se-
renely. "It's a Dr. Spock in reverse," says Flo-
rence. She and Jane welcome comments, will
assist if you're having trouble locating the
book, and look forward to hearing from old
friends. Good luck and much success!

Our sincere condolences to the family of
Dorothy Boyle, who passed away on April 25.

Marjorie Lawson Roberts (Mrs. L.)
1116 Sourwood Circle
Chape! Hill, NC 27514

We were saddened to hear of the deaths of
two classmates this year: Elinor Deutsch Uhry
who is survived by her daughter aged 19, and
Elaine Bernstein Rankow, survived by her hus-
band, Dr. Robin M. Rankow.

From Greta Eisenmenger Neelsen comes
news that she is now running a children's art
studio, Angel Art Studio, after school in Pel-
ham, NY. She is also teaching and taking
courses in Wainwright House, a Center for Hu-
man Growth in Rye, as well as illustrating their
brochures. Greta writes, "I've become a blitz
round-the-world junketeer. Husband is with air-
lines, so I come as pocket companion to Singa-
pore, Osaka, Corsica, etc."

Helen Taft Gardiner, our gal in Guernsey
(Channel Islands, G.B.), writes fascinating let-
ters of her life on that little island that is a
blend of France and Britain and where the na-
tive tongue is a French "patois." Unhappily,
our space precludes printing all her news, but
here are a few highlights. She writes of the at-
tractive climate on Guernsey, the mild winters,
the delightful fresh fruit and vegetables (parti-
cularly prolific tomatoes), abundant flowers,
and of course, the famous Guernsey cows.
Some of Helen's spare time is spent looking af-
ter old-age pensioners with a service called
"Wood Round," similar to "Meals on Wheels,"
and entertaining visitors.

Helen took time out last summer from her
job of cataloguing collectors' books and objets
d'art to plan with several friends a US Bicenten-
nial Birthday Party on Guernsey! They "took
over" Vale Castle from the Ancient Monuments
Commission for the evening . . . "had the Har-
bour Master and the States agree to Fireworks
in JULY, got the police to keep gatecrashers
out, invited 300 people, and found that every-
one couldn't be more willing to help. Most of
them for nothing. Very heartwarming. An ama-
teur photographer loaned us his refrigerator

equipment for beer and ice cream for the 'privi-
lege' of being invited to take pictures of the
party at his expense! The local brewery gave us
the beer and wine at cost and provided three
men to serve free . . . Two whole lambs were
roasted on spits and chicken legs barbequed
outdoors; baked beans, salad, garlic bread; ice
cream cones with chocolate mint ice cream . . .
Two orchestras— one for some real old USA
Country Music and one for Jazz . . . This is the
time of year when friends have children and
grandchildren visiting and they all enjoyed the
somewhat unusual entertainment.

"The highlight of the evening was the Red
Coat raid (some of the local doctors had gotten
together, dyed some white cotton mess jackets
left over from the Colonial Empire the proper
red, and complete with Union Jack and camp
followers invaded The Castle.') A tussle went
on, and eventually the Union Jack was planted
on the curtain wall, ABOVE the USA Bicenten-
nial Flag . . . However, as darkness fell, a second
raid (this time by marauding Indians) managed
to burn the Union Jack and honor was done!
And then we had fireworks (boat flares which
had just gone out of date which meant we had
to get permission from the Harbour Master and
the States) and a reading of selected parts of
the Declaration of Independence by the Rector
of the Vale Parish Church, who is named (and
you'll never believe it) John Hancock!!!"

Helen writes she "is still wining and dining
out on the benefits from our Fourth of July
Party . . . still billed as 'The Party of the Centu-
ry' in Guernsey." And we can see why!

Kathryn Bruns Swingle (Mrs. J. W.)
602 Tremont Avenue
Westfield, NJ 07090

PLEASE NOTE

Alumnae wishing to use Bar-
nard’s library facilities must
first obtain an identification card
at the Alumnae Office — 115
Milbank Hall.

Anne Vermilye Gifford (Mrs. W. E.)
2433 East Lake Road
Skaneateles, NY 13152

What are some of your classmates up to in
Central New York?

Finally, caught Eleanor Suttle Jones at
home this week and put her on the spot. She
sends you all her best regards. Hopes she's going
to have some time to catch her breath soon, as
she's cutting back on community and church
activities. For the past five years Elbe's helped
establish a day care center in North Syracuse.
Now she's able to turn it over to one of the
working parents. Just in time because she's now
chairing a steering committee to help provide

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 59

services for elderly Indians living on the local
reservation. This, of course, is a very vital issue
today. Especially interesting because it services
a unique rural population and is very politically
sensitive right now. EMie and Bill have three
daughters: Christine is a senior at St. Lawrence
U, Canton, NY; Barbara is a media resource per-
son at BOCES, Oswego County, NY; Marinda
has just received her MBA degree from North
Eastern U. Ellie gets to NYC occasionally and
hopes to get to our 35th.

Bonanza!! Found Ottilie Glennon Johnson
at home also. She's moved to Utica from Sche-
nectady. Her eldest daughter, Susan, is working
there, so this makes it nice for Ottilie. Daughter
Jean is married, living in Cleveland, OH, and
teaching kindergarten. Son Randy is with an in-
vestment firm in Boston, MA. Ottilie is very
active in the Mohawk Valley Health Education
Council. Another interesting and vital activity.
Maybe we can talk Ottilie into coming to our
35th.

Deborah Burstein Karp and her husband
Rabbi Abraham Karp were in the news last
spring. The Temple Beth El congregation of
Rochester, NY, honored them for their contri-
butions to their congregation, their community
and the State of Israel. Stating further that De-
borah was intensely involved in every facet of
Temple life including Sisterhood and develop-
ing in-depth education programs for women.
She has been an instructor at the U of Roches-
ter and St. John Fisher College. Rabbi Karp is
now the Philip Bernstein Professor of Jewish
Studies at the U of Rochester.

Received a nice letter from Joan Borgenicht
Aron. She has moved to Washington, DC and
would love to hear from DC-area alumnae, so
give her a call. Her address is 2000 N St., NW,
20036. She writes: "After five years of teaching
urban public policy at the NYU Graduate
School of Public Administration, I came to
Washington on a NASPAA fellowship to gain
some practical experience in the public sector.
Because of research I had done in the energy
field. I've been working in the Office of Policy
Evaluation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commis-
sion and enjoying it enormously. So much so in
fact that I'm planning to stay on for at least
another year. Beyond that, I'm uncertain
whether I'll remain here or return to the acade-
mic community. My five children are spread
throughout the United States, from West to
East coasts. Two are married and the two
youngest have just completed college."

I have three more columns to get out under
my tenure of office. So, please, write me your
news or better yet, come for a visit if and when
you get to Syracuse or Skaneateles, NY.

Wouldn't somebody like to volunteer to be
our next correspondent? Somebody talented
and humorous?

Ethel Weiss Brandwein (Mrs. S.)

2306 Blaine Drive
Chevy Chase, MD 20015

I had a double treat from Harriet Fisken
Rooks: a long letter (including a family snap-
shot) and then a phone call early this summer
when she came to Washington, DC with lawyer

husband Hal who had to file a brief with the
SEC. Harriet reports she's kept close to home in
Seattle, WA (with some volunteer activities)
raising her rather large family, most of whom,
however, are now scattered. Hal Jr. works in
the Washington, DC area (so the trip east gave
her the bonus of seeing him). Don is in Berke-
ley where he works for Recreational Equip-
ment, Inc. Heidi attends the U of Washington,
living in a group house. The only youngster at
home is Gordon, now 15 and enjoying the local
high school, despite the handicaps resulting
from an attack of mumps encephalitis which hit
him in kindergarten, just one year before immu-
nization for it was discovered. Harriet, who
sounded just as full of zip and good spirits as
ever, sent best wishes to all.

Patty (Lorina) HaviH is busy with her career
in music education. She teaches at the Manhat-
tan School of Music (formerly she taught at the
pre-college Juilliard School). She has had two
books published: "You Can Sight Read" and
"Pleasures of Sight Reading Through Keyboard
Harmony and Technique." She was a judge for
the Fulbright Piano Composition Competition
and she has a home studio.

Dr. Olive Roberts Francks of Hudson View
Gardens in NYC is assistant professor of curri-
culum and teaching at Fordham U. In addition
to teaching, she is a consultant to the Council
of Supervisors and Administrators, is on the
planning committee for the National Art Edu-
cation Ass'n conference and is coordinator of
the elementary competency -based teacher edu-
cation program at Fordham. She recently
served as a resource person for a workshop on
helping parents read homework with their chil-
dren during the 22nd Convention of the Inter-
national Reading Ass'n in Miami Beach.

WANT TO -

get together with other alumnae?
make new Barnard friends?
and renew ties with the College?

Contact the Alumnae Office

for information on
starting an informal group
or a Barnard Club in your area.
Write:

Barnard Alumnae Office
606 West 120th Street
New York, N. Y. 10027

Call: 212-280-2005

Daisy Fornacca Kouzel (Mrs. A.)

54 Cayuga A venue
Atlantic Beach, NY 11509

One letter is better than none, and when it's
as nice as the one I got from Mary Benedict Bell

it's a lot more than that. Mary lives in Oakland,
CA, with her husband of 31 years, Ed. She just
graduated from the California College of Arts
and Crafts, after working five years as a layout
artist and teaching art in the public schools for
ten years. Indeed, her whole life has been per-
meated by art. She has had countless exhibits
of her work, and confesses to an "obsession
with the figure," which she absorbed from such
luminaries as George Bridgeman and Reginald
Marsh, who, among others, have been her teach-
ers. It was very probably such "obsession"
which inspired her most recent effort— a series
of gymnasts in movement for a show at CCAC
last April. Along with all this, there has been
the small matter of raising four sons. They are:
David, recently graduated from Berklee School
of Jazz in Boston; Steven, a graduate in agricul-
ture from Chico State; Jeff, working in the loan
and mortgage field; and Matthew, still in high
school and working in Alaska for the summer.
"There is a rush of love in me for New York
City and San Francisco," says Mary, "and I am
really alive near the oceans of each coast." I
hope she will look me up when she comes back
for a visit to the Big Apple, which seems to be a
real possibility.

Nothing much to report from my end that
you did not read in the previous issue. Marga-
rita is exhibiting a definite penchant for the
dance (Terpsichorean tendencies, my husband
would say), and Miriam continues to do well
with her piano and violin. I am continuing, all
by my lonesome, my uphill fight against capital
punishment (and now also against the threat-
ened Constitutional amendment to prevent
abortions, which, if you have read my letters to
the Barnard Bulletin, I am against, while being
completely FOR the law which permits them),
and continuing to teach Spanish at NYC Com-
munity College, and enjoying it.

Will you all out there write to me?

Patricia L. FitzGerald (Miss)
Star Route

Sparrow Bush, NY 12780

Katherine Harris Constant (Mrs. R. G.)
■ ■ 39 Beech wood Drive

Glen Head, NY 1 1545

Elizabeth Eastman Gross (Mrs. L.J.)
1 13 West 95th Street
New York, NY 10025

Marilyn Heggie De Lalio (Mrs. L.)
Box 1498, Laurel Hollow Road
Sy asset, NY 11791

June Feuer Wallace (Mrs. D.)

1 1 Lincoln Street
Arlington, MA 02174

Laura Pienkny Zakin (Mrs. J.)
Route 4, Box 33
RoUa, MO 65401

CJ Gertrude Brooks Lushington (Mrs. N.)

V I 247 Riverside Avenue
Riverside, CT 06878

It is about four on the afternoon of the
Fourth of July. Your class correspondent has
just returned from her third day of sailing, sec-
ond race. She is sunburned, tired, headachy and
very vague about what happened at Reunion
back in May. She is thinking how idiotic it
seems to be sitting down to write a column that
will be printed in September about events that
occurred in May, or before. The July issue of
the Alumnae magazine will no doubt arrive
next week and remind her of things she should
have included in this column— there is always a
time lag. Not to mention memory lag, pressure
of other things to be done lag. She awaits the
result of the magazine questionnaire with great
interest; are you avid for news of class mem-
bers, or would you rather read topical essays.

No one, at any rate, is beating a path to her
door with news.

On to what she can dredge up from Reunion;
trekking into New York for Reunion on Friday,
May 13, your correspondent saw '51ers Naomi
Loeb Lipman, Anita Kearney DeAngelo and
Rhonda Sussman Weidenbaum. The classroom
presentation on Christianity and Judaism by
Professors Elaine FI. Pagels and David Sperling
was fascinating to this ex-religion major.

After lunch Mrs. Mattfeld spoke to us of
Barnard's continuing commitment to inquiry
and excellence and impressed us with her deter-
mination to maintain Barnard as a women's
college.

The afternoon panel, "Nurturing the Next
Generation; The Educated Mother," was in-
formative and entertaining and "Barnard in the
Performing Arts," with Mildred Dunnock and
Elizabeth Keen, was outstanding.

Sorry to have missed the next day's events
and classmates Dorsey Bennett's and Naomi
Loeb Lipman's participation in panels on
"Ethics in the Public Arena" and "Barnard's
On-Going Commitment."

One of Naomi's sons has informed us that
Naomi is now again employed in NYC. Brooks
no longer commutes three days a week to Gen-
eral Theological Seminary, but is writing full
time in Connecticut.

Send in your news!

Eloise Ashby Andrus (Mrs. A.)

2130 San Vito Circle
Monterey, CA 93940

Betsy Weinstein Bora! (Mrs. J. S.)

311 Monterey Avenue
Pelham, NY 10802

Sixty-two members of our class attended
our 25th Reunion, and it was, I think, a most
pleasant experience for all. It was very interest-
ing that with such diversity of interests and oc-
cupations, we all had so much in common.
There didn't seem to be one dull person in the
whole group!

Only 88 class members returned the ques-
tionnaires, but some interesting information
was gathered. Nine members of our class have
died. Most of the class live in the northeast US
(although 22 reside in California); 18 are living

SO YOU’RE MOVING
TO THE CITY?

CALL

THE BARNARD UNIT OF
EVERYBODY’S THRIFT SHOP

330 East 59th Street
New York, New York 10022
212-EL5-9263

Send us your discards to
convert into scholarships at
Barnard. The better the
discards, the more money for
scholarships.

abroad. Alice Goslinga Ribbink came all the
way from Holland to Reunion! Records show
that our class has a total of 593 children, and
at least two have grandchildren. So far 10
daughters have attended Barnard and at least
one will enter in Fall 1977. We have 7 MD's
(one also has a PhD); 5 LLB's plus two in prog-
ress; 29 PhD's or EdD's and four in progress; in-
numerable MA's, ME's, MSW's, MLS's, etc.
Most unusual perhaps is a degree in forestry.
Miriam Schapiro Grosof, our mathematician
president, estimates that 60% are working full
or part time in "paid" employment. We have
several writers, one of whom, Francine du Ples-
six Gray, gave the address at the Reunion
luncheon. By and large, those who answered
the questionnaires express satisfaction or, at
least, tolerance in looking back over the past 25
years and optimism for the future. Maybe this
reflects the not-uncommon increase in self-
acceptance around the age of 45!

Very few regret having chosen Barnard and
many praised it as a positive and significant in-
fluence. A note from our Class President; "I
am proud to be a member of this class and to
number so many among my friends, old and
new. My thanks to those who helped with Re-
union in ways large and small."

Some news on classmates not able to attend
Reunion; Helen Varsfelt De Pastor is living in
Madrid. Her husband is a Commander in the
Spanish Navy, and they have four children. He-
len has just received her Master's in Spanish
literature at NYU in Madrid. Mary Dee barter
Launch is now in Brookville, PA. She and her
husband are in the coal mining business there.

C O Gabrielle Simon Lefer

55 East 87th Street, Apt. 6L
New York, NY 10028

Louise Spitz Lehman (Mrs. T.)

62 Undercliff Terrace South
West Orange, NJ 07052

Tamara Rippner Casriel (Mrs. C.)
50 Jerome Avenue
Deal, NJ 07723

Toby Stein
45 Church Street
Montclair, NJ 07042

I hope all of you were as interested as I was
in the Summary of our 20th Reunion class ques-
tionnaire. Three cheers— and one cheer more—
for Julia Keydel, Jessica Rakin Gushin, Piri
Halasz, and Nicole Satescu! I would be glad to
pass on any and all comments you may have to
the committee through this column in a future
issue, if you would take the trouble to set them
down and send them to me. And give some po-
sitive thought to joining us for a mini-reunion
next May. Our class is not yet so Securely sold-
ered that we can afford to let five years seem
between get-togethers.

A long informative letter arrived from Natha-
lie Kisseleff Grabar. She and her husband, Nich-
olas, run a travel agency in Paris, specializing in
American tours to Europe. (Nicholas' back-
ground includes participation in France in
Eisenhower's People-to-People Program.)

Nathalie has four children; her oldest, An-
drew Coulter, is at Columbia. The others are
Michel, 12, Sophie, 10, and Alexis, 7. She
writes that she had been working part time for
many years in a French physics research labora-
tory, helping with documentation in Russian
and English. Now, she and her husband lead
tours to such places as Russia (this year) and
Egypt (maybe next year). Any alumnae who
would like more details on such tours are invi-
ted to write Nathalie at 37 Avenue Du Chateau,
Meudon 190 92, France.

At the end of her letter Nathalie suggests
that she would like to have more news in "Bar-
nard Alumnae" of the 'astounding' professors
we had; she names Mrs. Roosa and Mrs. Bovd,
as examples. She asks what they are working
on, writing on. If others of you feel the same
way, let me know and I will emphasize the idea
to appropriate ears.

Speaking of Barnard people and keeping up
with them; Mrs. Stabenau will likely chide me,
but I would like anyway to report that she re-
cently underwent some difficult surgery, is do-
ing much better now, and would enjoy— an
educated guess, this— hearing from some of you.

A letter came from Taxia Efthimion Paras,
filled with her doings. Some of the ones which
intrigued me most; Taxia is on the Citizens' Ad-
visory Committee to Southworth Planetarium,
which is situated on the Portland Campus of
the U of Maine. She has served on the Greater
Portland Arts Council for a number of years.

Because there is no Barnard Club in her area,
Taxia became involved in the local chapter of
the AAUW, in which she has since held many
positions. A delightful one; Taxia served as
chairman of the Young People's Piano Competi-
tion that AAUW co-sponsors in her area with
the Portland Symphany. Her latest positions are
project chairman AND distribution chairman of
southern Maine of "Afoot in Maine."

She writes that "Afoot in Maine" is a pro-
ject put out by all AAUW groups in Maine toge-

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 61

ther. The book is similar to the "Yellow Pages
of Learning" put out by MIT Press, but is
localized for Maine. Copies can be ordered di-
rectly from Taxia, if you are interested in see-
ing one. In addition to these extra-curricular
activities, Taxia taught mathematics full time
until six years ago and part time since. Peter
James, 12%, and Mari Anne, 4%, are additional
full-time projects.

The rest of you? Tell us what you're doing,
and we'll pass on the news. I know, I keep say-
ing that. Happily, it's beginning to get results.

Sara Ann Riesner Friedman (Mrs. V.)

7 West 95th Street
New York, NY 10025

Barbara Rosenberg Grossman
631 Orienta Avenue
Mamaroneck, NY 10543

Elaine Postelneck Yamin (Mrs. M.)

775 Long HiH Road
Gillette, NJ 07933

Judith Johnson Sherwin wrote to say that
she will have three books published between
the end of this year and some time next year.
Two of them, "The Town Scold" and "How
the Dead Count," are books of poems. The
third, which has not yet been titled, is "a prac-
tical business handbook for writers of poetry
and fiction." The handbook will be distributed
free or at cost to members of Poets and Writers,
Inc., which will publish the book, and at cost to
anyone else who writes in for it. Judy recently
had fiction published in Playboy and Ms. and
has been working as president of the Poetry
Society of America.

Having served for four years as Director of
the Barnard ^und, Jane Epstein Gracer is now
Director of Development at the Ethical Culture
Schools in NYC. She is in charge of ail fund-
raising for the three schools. Jane and her hus-
band visited Israel recently and she describes
the trip as "incredible" and "the most exciting
thing I've ever done." More than anything, it
was the history of the area that impressed her.
She read and learned as she walked and it
seemed that everyone was working hard to
make the country prosper. Jane has two daugh-
ters, 1 1 and 13 years of age, and an 18-year-old
son who will enter Columbia in the fall.

Rita Shane Fritter sang the role of Berthe in
Meyerbeer's "Le Prophete" at the Metropolitan
Opera. The New York Times said that the role
was "just the sort of thing to reveal the range,
flexibility and power of her soprano, and the
character, that of a young girl in love, is one
that she has the looks and energy to portray
believably."

It is with great sadness that I report the
death of Dr. Jane Van Der Karr Basile. She died
on February 20, after suffering a stroke while
giving a speech. Survivors include her husband,
Juan Carlos Basile, and son John. Jane was con-
sidered an expert on Latin America and was the
author of several articles and books. She re-
ceived many grants and citations and was hon-
ored by NYU as one of its most distinguished
graduates. She was active in Barnard alumnae

activities, serving as Barnard area representative
in Florida. The class extends its deepest
sympathy to her family.

Norma Rubin Talley (Mrs. E.)

762 Preston Road
East Meadow, NY 1 1554

Miriam Klein Shapiro has another graduate
degree. In addition to a master's degree from
the Columbia School of Social Work, Miriam
received a master's degree from the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America.

Karen Swenson spent this past fall as Writer
in Residence at Clark U and will be teaching
this summer at writers' conferences in Cape
Cod, Aspen, Denver, and Richmond, KY.

Transcripts

Official copies of transcripts bear-
ing the seal of the College and the
signature of the Registrar of the
College can now be sent only to
another institution, business concern,
or government office at the request
of the student or alumna.

Requests must be in writing; no
orders taken over the telephone.

When ordering transcripts, alumnae
should give their full name,
including their maiden name, and
dates of attendance.

Fees for transcripts: $1.50 per copy.

Ethel Katz Goldberg (Mrs. H.)

90 Cedarbrook Drive
ChurchviHe, PA 18966

Carol Murray Lane became director of the
Professional Children's School as of July 1.
Carol had previously held a variety of positions
at the school including assistant to the director,
assistant director and high school principal. We
wish her the best of luck in her new position.

Joy Hochstadt write: "At last writing I was
two years younger, the recipient of a $20,000
sex discrimination settlement, the new parent
of Juliane Hochstadt-Ozer who with spouse and
co-parent Harvey Ozer each settled for one
day's parturition leave before resuming our
professional activities, etc.

"Since then life has been 'trial by fire' with
ups and downs to say the least— including ter-
mination by previous employer on the heels of
the above settlement for 'disloyalty.' Denial of
relief for retaliation by both district and appel-
late courts. Several months as visiting professor
of membrane research at Weizmann Institute
of Science, Rehovot, Israel, while awaiting ap-
peal. Several months as visiting professor of bio-
chemistry and biophysics after learning the

courts were on a par with the defendants. Re-
ceipt of a new $100,000 plus National Insti-
tutes of Health grant (in addition to the two I
had currently). Listing in "Who's Who in Amer-
ica" (likely to be youngest biomedical scientist
of either sex to be so listed). Convenor or invi-
ted speaker at numerous international scientific
meetings. Publication of a dozen of my research
articles in biochemical journals— all during the
interval of my lock-out upheld by the judiciary!

"So much for the past. I am presently re-
search professor of microbiology at New York
Medical College, Harvey is professor of biology
at CUNY-Hunter College, Juliane is in youngest
class at Walden School. The three of us (and
Mrs. White— Juliane's nurse since birth) are all
enjoying our view of the reservoir and the park
from our Eldorado Towers apartment. The
park, city, theaters, bistros are great joys at
homecoming from our 17-year odyssey which
was both successfully developmental as well as
tumultuous. I hope to be calling the friends in
the class I left behind at graduation."

Once again. I'm running short of news.
Haven't heard from anyone else in months.
Hope you all had a nice summer and that you'll
find time to drop me a line or two to let me
know what's new and/or interesting in your
lives.

That's all folks!

O J Dr. Arlene Weitz Weiner
O I 6394 Monitor Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Glad to get a few notes worrying about the
dearth of news. We all read class notes for news
of friends but write class notes as if for enemies!
Besides tremedous accomplishments (degrees,
books, and babies) there are small private gains
and losses to share. For myself, I want to know
just where and how my sisters are.

Eisa Adelman Solender, now in Pikesville,
MD, has joined the staff of B'nai B'rith Int'l in
Washington. She will develop new publications.
She's had articles in Moment, Baltimore and
Jewish Digest and does free-lance journalism,
especially on Jewish topics. Elsa writes that
Aviva Cantor-Zuckoff was in Baltimore. Aviva
has lectured on Jewish feminism across the US
and in Canada and is acquisitions editor of
Lilith, the Jewish feminist magazine. Sounds
like two strands right there for an old-girl net!

The alumnae office forwarded clippings
about Louise Bernikow and Jan Houk Willette.
Louise gave the keynote address at the Terre
Haute Women's Art Symposium. No doubt
you've seen her work in MS, the Times Book
Review or elsewhere.

The story about Jan, from the Orinda Sun,
is a fine feature discussing her role in that Cali-
fornia suburb, where she became associate pas-
tor of the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian
Church in 1975. From her graduation from the
seminary until then she'd worked part time.
Her "very supportive" husband Dick and she
moved to Orinda from Marin and he commutes
back. Dick's mother helps with Steven, 12,
Trevor, 10, and Carrie Ann, 9. Jan approves of
career roles for women and of housewifery.
Since she cleans house and packs school lunches.

affirmation of the housewife is not ivory-pulpit
there. Jan is active in a most interesting pro-
gram of her church. The "Family Cluster Pro-
gram" links families of different configurations
—widow, divorcee with kids, nuclear family,
older couple— into an extended family of thirty
or so members. Mead would be pleased >

IN THE NEWS

Linda McAlister ’61

Dr. Linda McAlister has been ap-
pointed dean of the Imperial Valley
campus of San Diego State University.
Dr. McAlister, an associate professor
of philosophy at CUNY, spent last
year as visiting professor at UCLA. In
her new post, she will be responsible
for the academic affairs of the campus,
development of the budget, assistance
in recruitment, tenure and promotion
of faculty and liaison at all levels. The
Imperial Valley campus, located 120
miles east of San Diego, was estab-
lished in 1959. Its current enrollment
is about 400 students, and it has
granted nearly 900 degrees, mostly in
teacher education.

Rusty Miller Rich
29 Claremont Avenue
New York, NY 10027

Libby Guth Fishman (Mrs. A. L.)

2221 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Classmates who attended some Reunion
activities and whose names were omitted from
the last issue include: Judy Astor Smith, Wino-
na Kim Blackburn, Carolyn Brown Disco, Ken-
na Knapp Johnson, Kathy Mebus Toth, Patty
Klubnik Tarrallo and Rita Gabler Rover.

Congratulations to Barbara Stoler Miller for
promotion to rank of full professor of Oriental
Studies at Barnard, where she has taught since
1968 after receiving her PhD in Indie Studies at
U of Penn. She has published numerous articles
and four books on translations of classical Indi-
an poetry and philological studies of Sanskrit.
Actively involved in curriculum reform, she is
currently teaching a freshman humanities
course with Serge Gavronsky, using literature in
translation as a basis for approaching humanis-
tic studies. She has also served as department
chairman and is currently serving as faculty rep-
resentative to the Board of Trustees. Last sum-
mer was spent in India pursuing her study of In-
dian dance. She was accompanied by 7-year-old
Gwenn and joined in July by husband James, a
research neurologist at Columbia.

A recent news article from White Plains
notes that Harriet Kaye Inselbuch is the new di-
rector of public relations for the Westchester
Lighthouse, a division of the NY Ass'n for the
Blind, having previously worked as a real estate
broker and organized fund raising events for
United Cerebral Palsy.

Word comes of three classmates actively in-
volved in politics: Marion Friedman Greenbiatt
was elected to the School Board of Montgom-
ery County, MD; Ruth Nemzoff Berman is a
representative in the New Hampshire State Leg-
islature, while pursuing doctoral studies at Har-
vard; and Alice Finkelstein Alekman has been
working at the state level for the Delaware
League of Women Voters.

In April 1976, Diane M. Pottberg married
Joseph Lo Giudice and "a beautiful daughter,
Danielle," arrived in January 1977. Joe is a
teacher on Staten Island and Diane is on child
care leave from the Board of Education, "lov-
ing her new role." Another schoolteacher, Nan-
cy Davis Imhof, has been teaching third grade
in Arlington, VA. She received her MEd from
George Mason College in 1975. She reports that
her "baby" Susan is in fifth grade, while Samu-
el, 15, and Jacqueline, nearly 14, are in junior
high. Kenna Knapp Johnson is working on a
master's in marine ecology at Penn State. Her
daughters, Karin-Christine and Lara Ingrid, are
nearly 9 and 10, respectively.

Since Libby and I will probably be alternat-
ing columns, you can write to either of us, or to
the Alumnae Office. As this is being written in
sultry July for October, remember the time lag
for news. By publication time Alexandra will be
6 months old and may actually be sleeping
through the night!

Thank you to Debbie Bersin Rubin for five
years of informative columns. Let's keep the
news coming.

Flora Razzaboni Tsighis (Mrs. G.J.)
365 Wyoming Avenue
MiHburn, NJ 0704 1

Ann Dumler Tokayer (Mrs. S.)

23 Devonshire Terrace
West Orange, NJ 07052

This time most of our class news comes
from New England. Ruthana Donahue Clark
has taken a position with a large real estate firm
in Great Barrington, MA, where she has been
living since her marriage two years ago. Bob is
the editor of High Fidelity. Ruthana enjoys the
change from Manhattan living and spends her
free time at the piano and helping the American
Cancer Society. She would like to hear from
other alumnae in her area.

Ellen Sue Feinberg Friedman was named an
account executive in the Bridgeport office of
Bache, Halsey, Stuart, Inc., after completing an
intensive training program. Ellen, who holds an
MA in economics from Columbia, lives with her
family in Westport, CT.

Dianne Weiss Rose received her DDS from
the U of Detroit in 1974. After working in the
field for awhile, she recently opened her own
dental office in Holden, MA, where she and

husband Dr. Herbert Rose and their two
children live.

Amelia Arneson Sereen is living in Putney,
VT and working as a physician's assistant at the
Green Mountain Health Center in Brattleboro.

Barbara Schwartz wrote an article entitled
"Software: An Introduction to the Intricacies
of Programming," for EDN, a semi-monthly
magazine published in Boston.

Another author in our class writes from
Rye, NY: "What I would like to tell the whole
world is that I happily announce the publica-
tion of my first book, "Poplollies and Belli-
bones: A Celebration of Lost Words," to be
published in October 1977 . . . The book is a
humorous study of delightful, colorful words
that are termed obsolete, rare or dialect in vari-
ous dictionaries and that I have reintroduced
into modern context to bring them back to life
in stories, poems, dialogues, and rounds that I
wrote." Sue Kelz Sperling adds that she and
husband Allan and their children, Matthew, 10,
Stuart, 7, and Jane, 5, have greeted more Bar-
nard/Columbia couples who have moved to
Rye. They are Nat and Georgia Dobrer Kramer,
Robert and Barbara Lander Friedman, and Paul
and Marcie Fierman Kalkut '67. Sue, who so
ably preceded me in writing this column, still
devotes time to Barnard. In addition to her
work for the local PTA and synagogue, she is
working to develop the Westchester Barnard
Alumnae Club.

Priscilla Ruth MacDougall
346 Kent Lane
Madison, Wi 53713

No one wrote me any news for this season's
column. Does that mean you are not doing any-
thing? How about announcing divorces as well
as marriages?

I'll start off with mine. I happily divorced
J. Barry Forgione in August 1975 under Michi-
gan no-fault laws.

Anne Cleveland Kaiicki (Mrs. J.)

3300B South Wakefield Street
Arlington, VA 22206

Elena Zegarelli-Schmidt (Dr.)

100 Haven Avenue, Apt. 18D
New York, NY 10032

We hope you all enjoyed a pleasant summer
and we now pass along some news of our class-
mates sent to us since our last column.

Susan Cohn, who presently works in the
Dean of Studies office at Barnard, exhibited 18
of her drawings at the College May 2-9 in the
Print Room of Wollman Library. The exhibi-
tion was sponsored by the Women's Center and
the Department of Art History. Most of the
drawings were produced for her doctoral thesis
which was devoted to an examination of select-
ed works by the American painter, Georgia
O'Keeffe. Susan used lead, sepia, gold and/or
copper pencils on paper or stretched musin to
create her images. As Susan wrote of her own
work, she "attempted to isolate certain stylistic
manifestations in O'Keeffe's work and to incor-
porate them into her own drawings: formal
qualities and images which convey a sense of

BARNARD ALUMNAE / FALL 1977 / 63

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RETURN THIS FORM TO: Barnard Alumnae Office, 606 West 120th Street,
New York, NY 10027.

growth, expansion, emergence, or aspiration-
such as upwardly thrusting or spiral forms often
disposed within a confined space." Susan holds
a PhD in Creative Arts from NYU.

Joyce Doppelt MUtz was named technical
and science writer at the Kroll Pharmaceutical
Company in Whippany, NJ. She is working to-
ward a master's degree at the Graduate School
of Business of Baruch College. For three years
she was an administrator in the medical depart-
ment of Winthrop Laboratories, NY. There she
developed medical educational programs and
organized scientific symposia. Later, she
worked as a medical writer and designer of
scientific exhibits and training materials. She
lives in North Bergen, NJ.

Linda Rein graduated from Brooklyn Law
School on June 16. Our best wishes! Benjamin
Adam was born on May 1 1 to Walter and San-
dra Fromer Stingle, their first child after 10
years of marriage. Congratulations!

Linda Lovas Hoeschler was appointed last
April to program coordinator of the Dayton
Hudson Foundation, Minneapolis, MN. Most
recently she was managing editor of the Gover-
nor's Commission on the Arts. She will, in her
new position, coordinate the Foundation's arts
grants. Linda has written art reviews and fea-
ture articles for Twin Cities newspapers, devel-
oped grant proposals for arts organizations, pro-
duced concerts and lectured on the arts. She
holds a master's degree from the New School

for Social Research. Linda is married, has two
children and lives in St. Paul.

Please write and let us know what YOU are
doing!

Jessica An sell Hauser
4 Harmon Place
New City, NY 10956

Carol Stock Kranowitz (Mrs. A.)

4440 Yuma Street, NW
Washington, DC 20016

Adrienne Aaron Rulnick
141 Wendell Avenue
Pittsfield, M A 01201

"Reunion was more fun than I expected!"
one of our returning classmates said, and an-
other reported that "ALL of 3 Reid was there.'
Stay tuned for more quotes and comments
about Reunion as the reports filter in from sev-
eral proxy news-gatherers. Would that I had
been there, too! In the meantime, and with a
deadline to meet . . .

Jessica Lobe! Kahn joined the Teacher
Corps after graduation, received her master's in
education, and taught in the Philadelphia ghet-
to. In 1970, she and David Kahn were married,
and in February, 1974, they had a son, Michael
Lobel Kahn. While enjoying the rewards of be-
ing at home, Jessica plans, in due course, to
return to teaching.

IN THE NEWS
Pam Jean Crabtree '72

Pam Jean Crabtree is spending this
year in England as a recipient of a
Fulbright-Hays Award. She is based at
the archaeology department of the
University of Southampton, and is re-
searching material for her doctoral dis-
sertation. Her work involves study of
the animal bone remains from the An-
glo-Saxon archaeological site of West
Stow in Suffolk, the goal being a de-
tailed analysis of the animal husbandry
and economy of the earliest Saxon
settlers in Britain.

Ms. Crabtree, previously a graduate
student in European archaeology at
the University of Pennsylvania, has
participated in other excavations in
England, as well as Ireland, France,
and local work in the Newjersey/Penn-
sylvania area. She was one of approxi-
mately 350 students and artists select-
ed for grants during the 1977-78 aca-
demic year.

Jessica shared news of four other classmates.
Lyn Lederman is an internist on the staff of
Kaiser-Permanente in Los Angeles, but may es-
tablish a private practice in adolescent medicine.

Shulamith Strassfeld married Steven Saltz-
man and lives in NYC. She teaches dance at Tri-
nity College and studies dance, too, in the city.

Michale Murphy is a librarian at Case West-
ern Reserve in Cleveland after having received
her master's in library science from Columbia.

And Ina Schreibman was in law school in
Philadelphia when Jessica last saw her a year
ago.

A daughter, Yael Delia (blessed above wo-
men be Yael!) was born to Jehuda and Shula-
mith Rothschild Reinharz in Ann Arbor last
December. Parenting is a joyful experience for
the Reinharzes. This past spring, Shula success-
fully defended her thesis in sociology at Bran-
deis, and, come fall, she will be an assistant pro-
fessor of psychology at the U of Michigan.
Seems logical enough.

During the spring of 1976, Shula saw Beth
Friedman Shamgar in Israel where she lives with
her husband. She holds an academic position in
music.

Cathy Feola Weisbrod has been appointed
director of clinical social work of the Erich Un-
dermann Mental Health Center in Boston.

Karen Kraskow has been accepted at RISD
in the program for industrial design, an area in
which she is becoming increasingly interested.

And hasn't Davida Eisenstein Kellogg
packed in a decade's worth! She and her hus-

band Tom received their PhD's from Lamont-
Doherty Geological Observatory in 1973. The
Kelloggs then held post-doctoral research jobs
in the geology department at Brown, where
they also enjoyed auditing Swedish and Old
Icelandic courses. A son, Eirik Thomasson, was
born in June 1974.

Now in Orono, ME, Davida and Tom hold
joint appointments with the Institute for Qua-
ternary Studies with the geology department at
U of Maine. Last December, with an NSF grant,
they went to Antarctica to collect sediment
samples from the McMurdo Ice Tongue to
study the paleoclimatic history of the Ross Sea.
Davida sends her best to all the classmates she
was unable to join at Reunion.

I am grateful to Karen Kraskow for passing
along the following nuggets of news from Reun-
ion, which she helped organize and run, as you
know. Susan Shih is currently a banker in Cali-
fornia, and holds, among other post-graduate
degrees, an MBA from Stanford. Arlene Buch-
binder has a doctorate in clinical psychology, as
does Janet Sand.

Amy Kallman Epstein is an architect. She
received her degree in architecture from
Columbia.

Deanne Shapiro teaches assertiveness train-
ing and is active in feminist groups, working
with women in the area of Bloomfield, CT, as
well as with her students at the community
college there.

Arieen Hurwitz is in management consulting
in NYC, and Christine Knowles is involved in
urban planning in the Boston area.

More next time!

Jill Adler Kaiser
939 Ox Yoke Road
Orange, CT 06477

I received an addition to the foreign resi-
dents list of some issues back: Merry Rodgers
Wood is living in Vancouver, Canada with her
husband John, a political scientist, daughter
Kate, age 3, and son Peter, age 1 . This fall she
is starting her PhD in anthropology at the U of
British Columbia.

Barbara Inselman-Temkin, husband Larry
and Joshua fage 1 ) have left my neighboring
town of Milford, CT and moved to Tucson, AZ
where Larry is an assistant professor and direc-
tor of the Cardiac Catharization Laboratory at
the U of Arizona Medical School.

Plan now to attend our 10th Reunion in
May. More details will follow, i hope to see a
good representation from our class there.

Tobi Gillian Sanders
Mountview Drive, Route 3
Quakertown, PA 1895!

Eileen McCorry
Fairhaven Drive East, #A5
Nesconset, NY 11767

Our sincere sympathy is extended to Beth
Frydenzohn Segal on the death of her husband,
Fred, last May.

IN THE NEWS

Alexandra Corbin ’73

At the annual competition held by
the National Academy of Design last
spring, Alexandra Corbin was awarded
one of three Julius Hallgarten prizes,
which are monetary grants for a paint-
ing in oil by American artists under 35
who are not members of the Academy.
It was the first year Ms. Corbin had
placed an entry in the competition.
Her work, “Woman in a Black Hat,”
was exhibited with other entries in oil,
watercolor, graphics and sculpture at
the National Academy Gallery in New
York.

Ms. Corbin has a master’s degree in
fine arts from Cornell, and lives in
New York City, where, in addition to
both abstract and representational
painting, she works with small figures.

Patricia Stamm graduated from Columbia
College of Physicians and Surgeons last May.
She is doing an internship in medicine at the
Wadsworth VA Hospital in Los Angeles. She
will follow this with a residency in psychiatry
at UCLA Neuro-Psychiatric Institute.

Jorene FrenkI received an MS in library sci-
ence from Columbia in 1973. She is presently
working as a research assistant in the Law Dept,
at Metropolitan Life, and attending Fordham
Law School at night. She's on the Law Review
at Fordham.

Anne Math Berman has two sons: Benjamin
Eli, 3, and Alexander Stephen, 1 . She is living
in Newton, MA while her husband finishes his
cardiology training at the Peter Bent Brigham
Hospital in Boston. Anne said she'd like to hear
more about me in Class Notes. I'm teaching
English in a senior high school on Long Island.
The deadline for these Class Notes is July 5 and
as I'm typing them I'm looking forward to four
weeks in Ireland. Two of them will be spent in
Sligo at the Yeats Int'l Summer School. I'll
travel during the other two weeks.

Patsy Davis and I spent part of Memorial
weekend with Rachel Val Cohen and her hus-
band Kevin at their home in the Poconos. Ra-
chel is teaching art in a local school. She and
Kevin are also kept busy by a large vegetable
garden. Patsy is now living in Houston, TX.

Marilyn J. Stocker is dean of the School for
New Learning, De Paul U in Chicago. The
school is a non-traditional college for adults
that she designed and developed. Marilyn is
completing a PhD in educational administration
at Northwestern.

Laurie L. Stevenson delivered a paper— "Wo-
men Anti-Suffragists; Their Ideas and Activities
in the 1915 Massachusetts Campaign"— at the
Berkshire Conference of Women's History.

Phyllis Heller Magaziner and her husband
Fred have announced the birth of a son, Daniel
Robert, February 25, 1977.

nMeri-Jane Roche! son Mintz
618 West Grace Street
Chicago, iL 60613

Susan Roth Schneider
68-61 Yellowstone Blvd.

Forest Hills, NY 1 1375

Ruth Smith

10 Dana Street, Apt. 307
Cambridge, MA 02139

Marcia Eisenberg
123 West 82nd Street, Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10024

Suanne Steinman
1724 Ridgewood Drive, NE
Atlanta, GA 30307

Finally, after much commotion, although
not as much as I had anticipated, I have relo-
cated. My phone number is 404-377-3647, and
I would enjoy hearing from anyone in the area
very much. Upon my arrival, I received a warm
letter of welcome from Carol Vanbuskirk Paulk
'61 , who is an associate with a large law firm in
downtown Atlanta.

Debra Turkat writes that after she comple-
ted her MBA last summer, she began working
with Int'l Paper Co., a consumer packaging
business, in the New York office. Presently a
senior marketing analyst for Single Service Divi-
sion, she is "enjoying (?) being a woman among
chauvinists," an experience she finds awakening
for herself as well as her male colleagues. Who
else besides myself and Debra has experienced
this double-edged pleasure?

Ellen Fleishman has received a master's of
creative arts in therapy from Hahnemann Med-
ical College & Hospital of Philadelphia, specia-
lizing in movement therapy. While studying she
filled a clinical internship at the Philadelphia
Geriatrics Center, and supervised first-year grad-
uate students in her field.

Another creative artist, Kim Haley, has giv-
en a flute recital in Michael Paul Hall at the
Juilliard School. Kim's master's degree presen-
tation included works by Pierne, Bach, Jolivet,
Boehm, and featured a premiere of a new work
by Brewbaker.

Write soon. I am expecting news from many
of you of a long, hot, hopefully memorable
summer.

Anna M. Quindlen
21 Van Dam Street
New York, NY 10013

Diana K. Appelbaum
949 East 86 Street
Brooklyn. NY 11236

Patricia Stephens
106 Briar Lane
Newark, DE 19711

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